Open-access journals, which provide access to their scholarly articles freely and without limitations, are at a systematic disadvantage relative to traditional closed-access journal publishing and its subscription-based business model. A simple, cost-effective remedy to this inequity could put open-access publishing on a path to become a sustainable, efficient system. Scholars write articles to be read—the more access to their articles the better—so one might think that the open-access approach to publishing, in which articles are freely available online to all without interposition of an access fee, would be an attractive competitor to traditional subscription-based journal publishing.But open-access journal publishing is currently at a systematic disadvantage relative to the traditional model.I propose a simple, cost-effective remedy to this inequity that would put open-access publishing on a path to become a sustainable, efficient system, allowing the two journal publishing systems to compete on a more level playing field. The issue is important, first, because academic institutions shouldn't perpetuate barriers to an open-access business model on principle and, second, because the subscription-fee business model has manifested systemic dysfunctionalities in practice. After describing the problem with the subscription-fee model, I turn to the proposal for providing equity for open-access journal publishing—the open-access compact.Economists use the term “moral hazard” for the phenomenon of overconsumption of a good by a consumer who is insulated from the good's cost. The concept is frequently associated with the health care industry, in which insurance can lead to moral hazard in an insured's behavior of overconsumption of medical care. In fact, there is empirical evidence for moral hazard in medicine, and the hyperinflation of medical costs follows in part from this problem. Co-payments and deductibles, by passing on a portion of costs to the consumer, serve as tools to mitigate this moral hazard in medicine.Moral hazard exists in scholarly publishing as well. The “consumers” of scholarly articles  are insulated from the cost of reading, that is, from the subscription fees paid by the institutions' research libraries. The expected result—inelasticity of demand and hyperinflation—can be amply seen in the statistics of serials costs paid by research libraries But unlike access to medical care, where technological advances have dramatically increased the cost of access to state-of-the-art care (think MRI), access to scholarly articles has been reduced to essentially zero marginal cost, thanks to digital network technology (think hyperlink). In a world where the first-copy cost of publishing an article is essentially the entire cost, a business model for publishing that charges per article for article-processing services (the very services listed above) makes a lot of sense. It would in theory enable free and open access to articles while providing revenue to fund the important services that journals provide. The Public Library of Science journals are, of course, the flagship examples of journals using this business model. But there are several thousand other so-called open-access journals operating in all areas of scholarship. Although by definition they do not charge an access fee paid by or on behalf of a reader, they can still acquire revenue by charging an article processing fee paid by or on behalf of the author.In fact, only a minority of the extant open-access journals actually charge processing fees, as first confirmed by the Kaufman-Wills Group Over the past several decades, a workable infrastructure has developed to handle the subscription-based mechanism for scholarly journals—publishers to manage logistics and production, subscription agents to handle order processing, library budgets to pay for the subscriptions, overhead from grants to fund those library budgets, and so forth. Unfortunately, there is no such infrastructure to support the processing-fee model. Imagine you are a publisher of a subscription-fee journal, a forward-thinking publisher who sees the benefit to scholarship or at least the inevitability of the open-access processing-fee model. You would like to convert one of your journals to an open-access model. However, you realize that, were you to take this bold step, yours would be the first journal in its field to charge processing fees. Prospective authors would suddenly be faced with the prospect of paying, say, US$1,500 to publish their articles in your journal, as compared to paying nothing for your competitors' journals. Even though the primary motivation for authors is gaining the journal's imprimatur and the quality of that imprimatur for your journal hasn't changed (yet), the US$1,500 may be perceived as a steep price for the imprimatur advantage of your journal over your competitors'. By changing the business model for the journal, you risk abandonment of your journal by authors, undercutting its quality and its nascent revenue source. It might even be considered a derogation of your fiduciary duty to your shareholders to make the change in the face of such a high risk. Even a forward-thinking publisher is unlikely to take such a risk.The problem is, of course, that the US$1,500 article revenue to the journal that is provided by the processing fee under the processing-fee model is hidden in subscription charges in the subscription-fee model, and these are typically paid not by the authors, even in their role as readers of the journals, but on their behalf by subscribing research institutions, typically university research libraries. The authors don't see these charges; hence, they don't enter their economic calculus. Yet authors are now expected to pay these charges under the open-access processing-fee model. It is no wonder they might be expected to submit preferentially to closed-access journals. Indeed, it is a wonder that authors, even now, are willing to submit to processing-fee-charging open-access journals. It is a testament to the power of journal imprimatur over immediate financial interest that authors are willing to submit their best work to such journals.In summary, publishers see an unlevel playing field in choosing between the business models for their journals exactly because authors see an unlevel playing field in choosing between journals using the business models. To mitigate this problem—to place open-access processing-fee journals on a more equal competitive footing with subscription-fee journals—requires those underwriting the publisher's services for subscription-fee journals to commit to a simple “compact” guaranteeing their willingness to underwrite them for processing-fee journals as well.The crucial underwriters are universities and funding agencies. Universities underwrite closed-access journals through the institutional subscriptions that they purchase. Funding agencies do so through the overhead charges that they provide to grantee institutions, a sizable  fraction of which is applied to support of the libraries and thereby subscription fees again. Since both universities and funding agencies are (directly or indirectly) underwriting journal subscriptions, both should be involved in underwriting article-processing fees for open-access journals as well.The crucial property of the proposed compact is that the funds disbursed must be nonfungible, that is, applicable only to open-access processing fees. The ability of authors to trade off the funds against other uses for the money  would provide a disincentive to use the funds to enable publishing in an open-access journal; no progress would be made on the underlying equity issue. The funds shouldn't, for instance, be folded into a general research fund. The nonfungibility property is crucial.Funding agencies would ideally implement the compact by providing incremental funding for reasonable processing fees for articles in open-access journals, describing the results of research funded by their grants. By “incremental,” I mean that the funds would not come from the grant budget itself, but through a separate disbursement process whereby a grantee could request additional funds to pay open-access processing fees for articles based on grant-funded research.  Wellcome Trust has pioneered exactly such a procedure for its grantees.But not all research is grant-funded. Universities would commit on behalf of their authors to underwrite reasonable processing fees for articles in open-access journals for which funds are not otherwise available .There are many issues of implementation that would need to be addressed for a university or funding agency to turn the compact into a working program. Such issues as whose articles and which journals would be eligible, what constitutes a reasonable processing fee, what limitations on funds would be instituted and how they would be allocated, and so forth would all need specification. To a great extent, the details are incidental so long as they match the underlying goal of providing a sustainable mechanism for supporting open-access journals. Each university and funding agency will want to instantiate the compact as it sees best given its situation. It may nonetheless be useful to present some of my own opinions on aspects of implementation of such a compact, which I do below, keeping in mind that others may choose differently.Science and New England Journal of Medicine mold) might even charge subscription fees for online access to the full range of published material. It is only those portions of the journal that, in the language of the Budapest Open Access Initiative, “scholars give to the world without expectation of payment” that would be required to be available open access.To be eligible for reimbursement, the venue of publication would have to be a “pure” open-access journal, that is, a journal that does not charge readers or their institutions for access to any of the peer-reviewed articles that it publishes. This does not mean that the journal cannot sell subscriptions to print issues of the journal. Some journals with substantial non-peer-reviewed content  all subscribers. Even an institution that covered hybrid fees for all articles emanating from it would, at best, see a tiny compensating reduction in subscription fee. Consequently, the hybrid approach is subject to a “tragedy of the commons”; if all institutions participated fully, all would see subscription fees disappear, but no single institution sees any observable direct benefit by participation. It seems inappropriate to support a transitional business model with such an inherent flaw in its design.In addition, eligible journals would be required to have a policy to substantially waive fees in case of economic hardship. The fee-waiver policy would not, of course, apply to compact-institution authors, but would ensure that compact funds are not supporting journals that may disenfranchise researchers with limited means. Such fee waivers are, in any case, quite common for open-access journals.One might imagine that with funding agencies, universities, and other research institutions paying processing fees on behalf of their constituencies, a new moral hazard would be engendered; since authors would now not have to pay the processing fee, they would overconsume in a price-blind fashion, and processing fees would hyperinflate just as subscription fees have. The situation is not parallel, however, because the processing-fee approach intrinsically involves participation of the author. The simplest prescription to mitigate hyperinflation is to take advantage of the underlying principle of the compact to underwrite reasonable open-access fees. Fees above a certain level might be deemed unreasonable, leading to a cap per article on reimbursement of fees.An even better alternative is to place the cap on the funding made available to an author overall. Authors would have to trade off whether using a certain amount of their limited allocation of funds for a given journal was appropriate in relation to the services and imprimatur that the journal provides, thereby reintroducing exactly the economic tradeoff that is missing from the current system. A funder could cap processing-fee expenditures as a fixed small percentage of the grant amount. A university could cap processing-fee expenditures at a fixed annual rate per author. The caps could be designed to be sufficient to cover standard costs of processing fees for authors who publish at a typical level, but would still serve as a limit that would force authors to trade off the cost of a publication against the services  that a journal provides, in exactly the way that we would want in order to generate price pressure on publisher processing fees. In essence, the caps would act as inverse deductibles still allowing the economic signal to pass through to authors. In this approach, decisions about what is a reasonable fee are delegated to authors who choose on the basis of a market mechanism; the institution needn't stipulate reasonableness a priori.By design, the overall cost to a university of implementing the compact, in the short term, would be quite small. Hybrid open-access fees are explicitly eschewed, and true open-access fees tend to be found at present in just those areas of scholarship where grant support is most prevalent, reducing the underwriting load on the university substantially. Rough estimates based on the experience of the Berkeley Research Impact Initiative fall in the range of tens of dollars per faculty member per year. In the longer term, as publishers switch journals to an open-access processing-fee model, costs will increase, but these increases will be offset by the compensatory elimination of subscription fees and improvements in efficiency from repairing the market dysfunction that has plagued the subscription-based model, and will be accompanied by a broadening of access to scholarship that is central to the universities' and funding agencies' mission. Similarly, the cost to funding agencies can be managed as well. As costs begin to increase for open-access processing fees paid by a funder, compensatory decreases to grant overhead rates can be made to maintain cost neutrality. Such adjustments are appropriate since the processing fee payments are direct costs that are substituting for indirect costs of library subscriptions.It is important to keep in mind that the goal of the compact is not to increase access to the individual articles it underwrites. That goal is already reasonably satisfied by the possibility of open-access self-archiving that any author can unilaterally perform and that various open-access policies such as that of the National Institutes of Health promote. Rather, the goal of open-access funds as envisioned in the present proposal is to reduce the disincentives to authors and thus the risk to publishers of the processing-fee business model.(For this reason, the present proposal, though consistent with the recommendation of Universities UK and the Research Information Network in their report on paying open-access charges If all schools and funders committed to the compact, a publisher could more safely move a journal to an open-access processing-fee business model without fear that authors would desert the journal for pecuniary reasons. Support for the compact would also send a signal to publishers and scholarly societies that research universities and funders appreciate and value their contributions and that universities and funders promoting self-archiving have every intention of continuing to fund publication, albeit within a different model. Publishers willing to take a risk will be met by universities and funding agencies willing to support their bold move.The new US administration could implement such a system through simple FRPAA-like legislation requiring funding agencies to commit to this open-access compact in a cost-neutral manner. Perhaps reimbursement would be limited to authors at universities and research institutions that themselves commit to a similar compact. As funding agencies and universities take on this commitment, we might transition to an efficient, sustainable journal publishing system in which publishers choose freely among business models on an equal footing, to the benefit of all.


Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care, which enters its third year of operation in 2009 under the umbrella of BioMed Central, continues to promote and advance open access publishing through universal online access without charge, indexing in PubMed and archiving in PubMed Central, retention of authors' copyright, and expeditious peer review. Notable accomplishments during 2008 included a median lag time of four months from initial manuscript submission to publication, designation of eight articles as "highly accessed," and achievement of a balanced proportion of publications in our core topic areas of osteopathic medicine and primary care. In October 2008, Springer Science+Business Media, a major publisher of journals in science, technology, and medicine, acquired the BioMed Central Group. Our 2009 Editorial Board is presented herein, as well as a new mechanism for posting book reviews on the Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care website. We continue to encourage manuscript submissions and reader comments on our articles. Waivers or discounts of article processing charges are available via several mechanisms for eligible authors who submit qualified manuscripts. Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care enters its third year of publication with renewed vigor in providing rapid and universal dissemination of peer-reviewed research and scholarly work in primary care, particularly as it impacts osteopathic medicine, via our journal website at . Some of the major reasons for authors to publish in Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care include universal online access without charge, indexing in PubMed and archiving in PubMed Central, retention of copyright, and expeditious peer review. is to make Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care the leading journal in its field. We are pleased to report that last year Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care achieved a balanced proportion of publications pertaining either to primary care or uniquely osteopathic topics. Also during 2008, the most viewed article in Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care by Hruby and Hoffman [th Annual American Osteopathic Association Convention and Scientific Seminar in Las Vegas, Nevada [Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care have earned the "highly accessed" designation independently conferred by BioMed Central [Our goal in working with the 2009 Editorial Board  Hoffman  surpasse Central ,3-9.Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care is an independent, open access journal published under the umbrella of BioMed Central , the leading global open access publisher. In October 2008, Springer Science+Business Media  acquired the BioMed Central Group. Springer is the second-largest publisher of journals in the science, technology, and medicine (STM) sector. Springer originally launched Springer Open Choice™, its novel open access offering for authors and institutions, in 2004. Its acquisition of the BioMed Central Group signals that open access publishing is a thriving and sustainable aspect of STM publishing. The number of subscription-based journals transferring to BioMed Central's open access publishing platform increased in 2008, further substantiating the move toward open access publishing. Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care is well positioned to benefit from the combined experiences of BioMed Central and Springer in open access publishing.Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care are universally accessible online without charge. Thus, clinicians and researchers anywhere may view our journal website to access current and archived publications. In 2009, Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care remains the only major osteopathic journal to provide universal open access to all content, all the time [Articles in the time . The shoThe Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law." Publishing in Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care is a simple and efficient way for NIH grantees to ensure full compliance with the relevant policies.The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced and implemented their revised policy on enhancing public access to archived publications resulting from NIH-funded research in 2008 . The assOsteopathic Medicine and Primary Care levies article processing charges (APCs), after a manuscript submission has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication, to cover the cost of operations (rejected manuscripts are not subject to APCs). Authors at institutions that are members of BioMed Central will receive either a full waiver or partial discount of the APCs depending on their institutional membership. Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care also maintains a journal fund to support waivers of APCs for authors who are not affiliated with BioMed Central member institutions and who do not otherwise have access to grant funds or local monies to support the cost of publication. All waivers, regardless of funding mechanism, must be requested at the time of initial manuscript submission. The two primary criteria in determining whether a waiver is awarded are the quality of the submitted work and its congruence with our scope of interest.Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care strives to provide quick and fair review of all manuscripts. We are indebted to the 24 reviewers who completed evaluations of one or more manuscripts during 2008 (Appendix). We encourage readers of Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care to post comments on our articles via the hyperlinks provided on the title page or last page of the full text version of articles (reader comment hyperlinks are not available in the PDF version of articles). Comments relating to clinical practice generally will not be posted without supporting evidence from peer-reviewed publications. Figures, tables, and equations cannot be included within a posted comment; however, hyperlinks to such elements may be included. Upon acceptance all reader comments are directly linked to the full text version of the relevant article. Reader comments are not indexed in PubMed or archived in PubMed Central. General comments or correspondence relating to Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care may be sent to the Editor-in-Chief at OMPC@hsc.unt.edu.Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care will begin posting book reviews in the "Latest news" section of its home page in 2009. Books within our scope of interest are most likely to be reviewed. The book reviews will not be indexed in PubMed or archived in PubMed Central. Please submit books for review to: John C. Licciardone, Editor-in-Chief, Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care, University of North Texas Health Science Center, 3500 Camp Bowie Boulevard, Fort Worth, TX 76107, USA. There is no guarantee that a received book will be reviewed, and Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care will be unable to return any book, reviewed or unreviewed. Manuscript submissions will not be accepted at this address. In addition to book reviews, we expect to roll out other regular recurring features in the "Latest news" section of our home page during 2009.In response to author and publisher demands, Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care continues to promote and advance open access publishing in 2009 through universal online access without charge, indexing in PubMed and archiving in PubMed Central, retention of authors' copyright, and expeditious peer review. We encourage manuscript submissions and reader comments via our journal website.The author declares that he has no competing interests.Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care peer reviewers during 2008: Margaret Aguwa, Denise Burns, Roberto Cardarelli, Nancy Cooper, Gautam Desai, Christian Fossum, Gary Fryer, Kimberly Fulda, Frederick Goldstein, Kendi Hensel, Hollis King, Margot Kurtz, John Licciardone, Nicholas Lucas, Ron Marino, Reza Nassiri, Raymond Perrin, Karl-Ludwig Resch, Paula Scariati, Michael Seffinger, Peggy Smith-Barbaro, Karen Steele, Richard Virgilio, Nefyn Williams.


Hormone refractory prostate cancer remains a very challenging problem for both urologists and oncologists. Significant development has occurred in this area and the role of multi-disciplinary treatment is increasing. Urologists needs to work in collaboration with medical oncologists, palliative care consultants, specialized nurses, and social workers to improve quality of life. Dr. Makarand Kochikar and his co-authors have provided a very exhaustive review of this topic, and it will be a good reference for practicing urologists. I sincerely thank them for their effort.We are all very proud of our ancient heritage and culture. However, being groomed under the umbrella of western medicine, we are ignorant about the medical history of ancient India. The names of Charak and Sushruta are very well known to us, but we do not know their urological contributions. In this issue, Dr. Sakti Das takes us through the scene of urology in ancient India. I am gratefully indebted to Dr. Sakti Das for his contribution.Vasectomy is a very simple operation for all of us. It would be very difficult for anybody to believe that this simple snip can be a cause for lawsuits of medical negligence. There are several issues regarding vasectomy follow-ups, which are not carefully adhered to. Many times the excised was not sent for histopathological confirmation. Two consecutive negative semen samples may not be obtained before declaring the person′s sterile. Drs. Dhar and Jones provide an in-depth review on this topic should provide a food for thought.Though last year was challenging, it was a fruitful year for the journal. The beginning of the New Year provides the opportunity to audit the performance of the last year and plan for the future. Last year we decided to publish IJU quarterly and to bring out the issues on time, and I am happy that we managed to achieve this target of publishing quarterly issues on time. All the submissions are subjected to formal peer review. As the entire process of manuscript submission, peer review, and proofreading is being done online, it has completely eliminated the problems of manuscript loss, postal delay, and has shortened the publication time. The approximate time from the submission to the publication of an article is 120 days. We have been able to print colored photographs without any financial burden to the authors. The process of peer review is completely blinded, which maintains impartiality and avoids personal biases. Evidently, this has improved the quality of the papers published in the journal. The journal website is functioning well. The free online access policy has increased the readership of the journal and it is being accessed widely. There were more than 1,30,000 visitors to the IJU website last year.The format of the journal is now fairly standardized. Each issue has a combination of review articles on current urological topics by well-known national and international experts original articles and symposia on important clinical problems. We have reduced the number of case reports to approximately 5-6 in each issue. The uroscan provides a good review of the current published urological literature, while the evidence-based urology corner attempts to provide a balanced scientific, but critical commentary on controversial urological issues. It's my sincere hope that you would have found these articles interesting and beneficial. I would be keen to have your feedback in this regard, which will help us to plan for the future.Let me once again wish you all a very happy 2007.


Dear Editor,I read the editorial article ‘Peer reviewers - The gate keepers of Science’ with dueNot only do the peer reviewers have to have in depth knowledge of the subject concerned, they should also be trained to identify ethical misconduct in manuscript submission and report the misconduct to the concerned authority at the earliest so that appropriate action is taken. They need to identify various unethical conducts including plagiarism, double publication, fabricated data and falsifying, idea stealing, self plagiarism, copyright infringement. These should be discouraged at all levels and authors promoting it repeatedly should be reported to higher authorities.The evolution of medical practice stems from the data obtained from the research studies and the scientific journals. Thus, more such workshops should be organized to contribute to good quality of research papers and journals and thus to the evolution of medical practice in a larger perspective.


Diagnostic Pathology approaching, this Editorial looks at the journal's achievements so far and outlines the prospects and challenges.With the second anniversary of  Dear Friends, Colleagues, and Authors,Diagnostic Pathology. The journal's success so far encourages me to ask for your continued support for implementing a high-quality scientific journal covering the whole range of diagnostic pathology. Our aim is to provide clinical colleagues and researchers working in medical diagnostics and therapy with a high-quality, innovative, and easy-to-handle instrument for the distribution of new insights into tissue-based medical science. Topics include all aspects of medical information that can be acquired from human tissue by relevant technologies such as light or electron microscopy, blood analysis, polymerase chain reaction methodology, gene analysis, and data mining, and we also consider descriptions of individual manifestations of disease.Please allow me to express my deep gratitude for your interest in and becoming part of our still fairly young enterprise Diagnostic Pathology, on the other hand, is made sustainable by author-side charges which can be covered by research grants, financial support from the rapidly growing number of institutions welcoming open access, and institutions' arrangements with BioMed Central as the journal's publisher. BioMed Central also operates a waiver policy so as to ensure that publication charges do not impose new barriers after access barriers have come down. We fully acknowledge the efforts of authors, funders, and everyone else involved; we are very grateful as they really give us the opportunity to promote our journal Diagnostic Pathology and the unique opportunities it provides for the rapid and efficient dissemination of knowledge in our field.Our open access, internet-based journal can be read by anyone at any place of the globe without payment or other access barriers, the only condition being internet access. From our point of view this constellation especially supports colleagues and researchers working at places or in countries that might experience financial difficulties in accessing traditional subscription-based journals. Diagnostic Pathology is coming up to its second anniversary, and we can retrospectively analyze the initial two years. On average, we had about 70 – 75 submitted articles per year. At present we can accept about two thirds of them, with one third being rejected. All in all, an average of four articles per month is published. Our Editorial Board of well-known experts works hard to meet the aim of assuring the scientific quality of submitted articles and to provide authors with a first response as soon as possible, often within 14 days after submission. The board consists of active young experts working alongside senior scientists of international standing. The authors can expect that their article will be published within two months or even less, counted from first submission. Where it takes longer, this is usually due to authors needing more time to revise their papers based on the reviewers' recommendations. We would like to take the opportunity to thank all reviewers for their thorough and entirely neutral evaluations of submitted articles.Especially over the last year, the publisher has improved the tools for the submission and handling of articles, in close agreement with our suggestions. We are still engaged in further developing the technical features and to implement new ideas so as to benefit authors, editors, reviewers, and readers. Some ideas have been suggested in our previous Editorial. These included especially a close contact with our readers, whom we encourage to participate in discussions of and comments on published articles. We are convinced that this interactive publication model will be of additional benefit for both authors and readers. The first step would be an implementation of a discussion forum associated with already published articles. The next step under discussion is the implementation of virtual slides in connection with a specific server. Basically, this idea will connect science with education and will open a new chapter in the distribution of medical scientific data.Several readers (and authors) have asked us about indexing coverage of our journal. At present, we are in the evaluation process for impact factor tracking by Thomson Scientific. Also, we are optimistic about meeting the conditions and to be approved for inclusion in Medline in the near future. However, independent of indexing and tracking by external services we can provide our authors and readers with access data (number of times articles are viewed). We are proud about the fact that more than seven articles display more than 300 clicks per months on average. Several articles have been accessed more than 4000 times since 2006 – and this is only counting accesses to BioMed Central's server, a figure that would easily double if downloads from PubMed Central and other freely accessible full-text repositories were added. We can therefore assure our authors that their articles will be noticed by vast numbers of researchers, practising clinicians and not least lay readers (including patients), and that our journal is already established and recognized by colleagues interested in our work in the field of diagnostic pathology.Diagnostic Pathology. This duty has been successfully supported by all members of the Editorial Board, and my special gratitude goes to Dr. Torsten Goldmann and Dr. Gian Kayser. In addition, Diagnostic Pathology has been excellently assisted by the editorial staff at Biomed Central, especially by Stefan Busch and his colleagues whom I thank very much for all their efforts.The journal considers a broad range of article types, such as research, reviews, case reports, methodology articles, debates, or hypotheses. A high percentage of the articles published is made up of case reports, most of them with very rare diseases or disease constellations. We believe that case reports are still of scientific and educational value, even – or especially – in the time of electronic communication and evidence-based learning. Usually, at least half of the most-viewedarticles are case reports, vindicating the value of case reports for the community. Keeping the balance right between scientific quality, medical interest, and working conditions of authors who want to demonstrate their experience and expertise is a major factor in building a successful scientific journal such as Diagnostic Pathology with the aim to create an increasingly attractive, innovative and cutting-edge online publication for the benefit of the community.Dear authors and readers, let us work together to further improve I wish all our readers, authors, interested scientists, and members of our Editorial Board a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year 2008.Berlin, December 2007Klaus Kayser M.D., Ph.D.Editor-in-Chief.


Journal of Trauma Management & Outcomes an exciting, new, online journal, specifically dedicated to the epidemiology, care, and outcomes of severely injured patients.Welcome to The journal willconsider articles on all aspects of trauma research, with a focus on interventions with proven efficacy or inefficacy in improving clinically relevant outcomes such as mortality, morbidity, quality of life, function, and costs. It will serve as a scientific platform for clinical researchers and practitioners involved in the different stages of caring for patients with musculoskeletal, visceral, and multiple injuries.Journal of Trauma Management & Outcomes together with BioMed Central.Whilst other established journals exist in this field, several factors convinced me, and the fine members of our international Editorial Board , to launFirst, the projections of the World Health Organization on changes in the rank order of the global burden of disease are simply alarming. If they prove true (and there is no reason to doubt the forecasts), trauma will rank third (!) among all causes for disability in 2020 worldwide [Mobility is an integral part of our life, but we also have to deal with its adverse effects. With the exponential growth of motorization in developing nations, especially in Asia, and the demand for more powerful and faster vehicles in the industrial countries, the face of road crashes is changing. Traffic accidents affect both the rich and the poor, but the consequences on health-related outcomes are very different. There are few socio-economic areas where inequities and heterogeneity in health care services have such a strong influence on mortality and morbidity, beginning with proper resuscitation on scene, and not ending with physical and mental rehabilitation.Our interdisciplinary team had the opportunity of implementing accident research and prevention programs in Germany and Vietnam , and it Journal of Trauma Management & Outcomes are open access, meaning they are freely and universally accessible online. In addition, the authors hold copyright for their work and grant anyone the right to reproduce and disseminate the article, provided that it is correctly cited and no errors are introduced. The journal's articles are archived in PubMed Central, the US National Library of Medicine's full-text repository of life science literature, and also in other national repositories.This leads me to the second argument in favor of a new journal: Important biomedical information cannot change the world unless it is accessible to everybody. There are many highly reputed journals in the field, but few of them grant readers access to their full content. All articles published in Publishing online only meets the requirements of a modern world, and the quick turnover of medical information. It also shortens the time from peer-review to publication. All articles will primarily be reviewed in-house, and, if suiting the scope of JTMO, sent out to two or more international peer-reviewers. Peer-review will be conducted in an open manner, which, to my and the Editorial Board's members opinion, increases transparency.Apart from all these advantages, there is a little downer: article processing charges need to be covered by authors. This has, however, not impeded the stable growth in the number of articles available open-access, and taking part in this success story may clearly outweigh the inconvenience of paying for publishing. Also, there are many opportunities to apply for a waiver of processing charges that can be found on our website.JTMO will not publish basic research, but target the key components of modern health care-function, quality of life, and costs.Finally, the findings from basic trauma research contributed importantly to the knowledge of human physiology and pathophysiology. However, the research efforts and discoveries on the cellular, genomic, and molecular level are not paralleled by a similar progress in clinical and population-based research on trauma. Many established diagnostic and therapeutic interventions in trauma care have not yet been proven by studies of high methodological rigor, and we currently know much more about the interplay of cytokines than the quality of life of severely injured patients. BioMed Central who helped us in getting the journal started, the members of the Editorial Board, and, of course, the authors of the first articles who made JTMO the journal of their choice.I am thankful to the wonderful people at JTMO will soon become widely known among authors and readers, for the sake and benefit of trauma patients in a world without borders.I am pleased to lead this journal as the Editor-in-Chief, and I hope that the acronym


Nearly three years have passed since the first issue of our journal Diagnostic Pathology had been accessible via our open access publisher BiomedCentral. About 150 scientific articles have been published since then. Therefore, we want to express our deep gratitude to all authors who submitted their articles. They took into account two constraints, namely paying a publication fee, and, in addition, knowing that our journal has not yet been included into the citation index list.We are fully aware about the situation of our colleagues working in the scientific or health care environment: scientific publications in journals that are not listed in the citation index are considered of low quality. They usually are of no value for administrative or professional purposes. Therefore, we appreciate your support of our journal even more. In addition, you can be assured that we are trying hard to fulfil the citation index conditions. Unfortunately, we have to wait for a period of three years when applying for it. On the other hand, we do think that the citation index procedure is contradictory in itself: Why have newly established journals to wait for three years in our days? Do we not have several tools to measure all necessary numbers within a couple of seconds? Why a board of justices is mandatory for including or excluding new applicants when all necessary criteria can be found and graded by a simple Internet search?We leave the answer of these (and similar) questions to our readers. On the other hand, we ask for your understanding that we are a little proud of the real data of our journal Diagnostic Pathology: at first the high and still increasing number of colleagues who read the articles published in our journal; secondly, the number of our published articles that are cited in other journals; and thirdly, the number of colleagues who have registered in our journal. These data stand for themselves: at average more than one thousand colleagues read an article published in Diagnostic Pathology within a period of six months after publication. This holds true for all kinds of articles, also for case reports. We derive from these data that our colleagues are really interested in case reports and, even more interesting, that case reports are a satisfactory source of medical information. Obviously it is attractive to demonstrate medical findings at an individual patient – oriented basis, which can be as instructive as that of a statistical environment.The number of articles cited in other scientific journals is, of course, dependent upon the time the journal does exist, and the period between the date of publication and that of citation. Unfortunately, we could not find published data about the relationship between the length of this period and the scientific impact. We assume that it will take at least six months until an article can be included in the reference list of another article, and that probably additional six months will pass until the citing article will be published, or printed. Our own data are depicted in figure As we have mentioned numerous colleagues still register in our journal Diagnostic Pathology with a nearly constant rate of about 30 new registrations per month. All in all we have more than 1000 registered colleagues until now. Everybody can read our journal without being registered; thus, we derive from these data that these colleagues probably read our journal regularly.In addition to increase the scientific value of our journal we also want to encourage colleagues who are working in developing countries to submit or continue in submitting their articles to our journal. Although it is not in our power to release authors from the publication fee, we are doing our best to convince the publisher for providing adequate waivers.As we have already discussed in our previous editorials, we are still engaged in establishing new tools for easier publication and more appropriate distribution of information via our journal Diagnostic Pathology. This will hopefully include the possibility of virtual slide integration as well as automated access to search machines such as that of the National Institute of Health. The discussion about these and other ideas with the publisher has started, and we do hope that they will be successful implemented in the near future.From our point of view, a successful year is coming to its end. We acknowledge that not all aims could be reached; however, a big step forward could be done.We wish all our authors, readers, reviewers, and our publication team a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year.


This editorial welcomes readers to the launch of Journal of the International AIDS society. Journal of the International AIDS Society (JIAS) was re-launched at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico in August 2008.Medscape Journal of Medicine, which allowed JIAS to operate and grow under its umbrella, we have reached the time when we are able to become an independent journal and continue with this success. Our gratitude must go to our former partner Medscape for this collaboration, which we now hope to continue in new forms.After four years of fruitful collaboration with Journal of the International AIDS Society (JIAS) is now proud to be associated with BioMed Central as its new publisher.BioMed Central has a long history of successful publications in a wide array of disciplines in medical science. They are professional and have attained high levels of success by providing an artful combination of rapid peer review, open access, and a professional staff that strives at all times to help journals to sustain high quality publications.Retrovirology and AIDS Research and Therapy, journals with which JIAS is committed to work with closely in the future.The achievements of BioMed Central in the field of HIV/AIDS in recent years is perhaps best illustrated by the success of two sister journals; JIAS will now adopt to attain the goals that we, the Editors-in-Chief and our sponsor, the International AIDS Society, have set.An important key to the success of medical journals is the ability to engage serious and well-respected reviewers who are willing to donate their time to assist in the peer review process. This is a formula for success that JIAS is committed to provide mentorship to authors as a means of helping them improve the quality of submitted manuscripts.As in the past, we will give priority to articles that are submitted by authors in developing countries and will insist that all articles accepted for publication be of high quality. In order to maintain a high standard of publication, We hope that we will receive articles on the all important topic of HIV clinical trials, which now are, to an increasing extent, being carried out in developing country settings. This is a reflection of where the great burden of HIV infection in the world actually is, as well as the fact that an insufficient number of patients available for enrollment into large scale clinical trials currently reside in developed countries. Many new drugs, that are now being tested for the first time in either naive or experienced populations, are increasingly being studied in developing country settings. We hope our journal will create a platform for dissemination of the results of these trials during the coming years.JIAS for potential publication.Of course we also hope to attract excellent manuscripts in areas of research that may be related tangentially to clinical trials. As an example, the study of the prevalence of drug resistance mutations in different countries is a topic of widespread interest as is the extent to which sexual transmission of mutations associated with drug resistance might take place. The occurrence and transmission of such mutations is, of course, an unfortunate yet inevitable consequence of the increasing availability of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). Frequently, different patterns of such transmissions may occur in different countries based on patterns of drug use. It will be important to document such differences. This is but one example of research that will be encouraged by The issue of drug resistance clearly has important overlaps with the epidemiology of HIV disease in both developed and developing country settings. Every effort will be made to encourage submissions of manuscripts from epidemiologists who are anxious to describe the state of the HIV epidemic in a variety of developing and developed country settings.We welcome commentary pieces on important topics. These may include such subjects as government policies in regard to access to antiretroviral drugs and whether or not appropriate efforts are being made to promote use or not of generic products. We will also welcome articles in the social sciences and examples of topics that might be covered include attitudes towards prevention trial research in the aftermath of the failures of phase 3 clinical trials involving potential vaccines and microbicides.Commentary articles will also be welcome on the issue of government policy toward encouragement of safe sex practices, as will articles on the ethics of various research approaches involving the participation of human subjects in both treatment and prevention trials from both a planning and implementation perspective. We would also like to generate activity on topics that have been relatively neglected and that should be prioritized for future research, including the very important subject of harm reduction and how to persuade policy makers that implementation of certain strategies, that might not be perceived as having popular support, could, in fact, result in diminished rates of HIV transmission.We will also solicit articles from major funding agencies and key opinion leaders in various fields in regard to the priorities that they might wish to set for research in developing country settings. As an example, invited articles will be solicited from leaders at the National Institute of Health, the Gates Foundation, the International Partnership on Microbicides, and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, among many others.Journal of the International AIDS Society (JIAS) will closely collaborate with other journals such as AIDS, Retrovirology and AIDS Research and Therapy to serve the scientific community by disseminating a wide range of scientific findings in the field. In the area of basic science research, we hope to collaborate closely with our sister journal Retrovirology. And it is conceivable that we may also decide, on occasion, that a different sister journal may be more appropriate for a manuscript submitted to JIAS. We will remain as flexible as possible with decisions of this type.JIAS into a highly rated and well respected journal in which to publish high quality manuscripts. In order to realize this goal, we recognize that we will have to work hard. At the same time, we will need to be tough and only accept high quality manuscripts. This is a necessary measure if we are to succeed in the realization of our goals for JIAS and the promotion of high quality research in HIV/AIDS from the world at large and developing countries in particular.Our goal is to transform Journal of the International AIDS Society (JIAS) welcomes submissions. We ask colleagues to submit via the online submission tool. We look forward to reviewing and publishing exciting new data and research that advance the struggle against the HIV pandemic.


The Board of Editors and the International Infectiologists Network in partnership with Medknow Publications proudly present the Journal of Global Infectious Diseases (JGID), which will promote the Translation of Science from Bedside to Benchside and Beyond in the field of Infectious Diseases across the world.Today the time has come that Basic scientists need to work side by side with Clinical Researchers and public health experts to advance science which is helpful to the health of humanity. With this unique interaction between basic scientists, public health experts and clinicians the discoveries made in laboratories can be applied to human situations on a population basis. It is known that Investigations and interventions with human health are a result of scientific studies from genetics, cell biology and animal research. This knowledge is then translated to create diagnostic and therapeutic advances and innovations. The mission of translational research is to incorporate the discoveries from basic science areas into clinical investigations and public health studies and to use the results to generate research topics for basic science. JGID will promote such novel research.Infectious Diseases research has its foundations in basic laboratory medicine. Translational Research is considered the pathway of application for ideas and innovations from basic science studies to the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of human disease. This area is the most dynamic and active scientific discipline. In 2005, “better translation of findings into patient care through guidelines” was at the top of the list of seven research priorities of the CDC, USA.Our Editorial Team has been meticulously chosen from infectious experts around the globe and spans from areas of virology, bacteriology, mycology and vaccinology. Newer areas of nanotechnology, Computational Biology and Biological intelligence have also been incorporated.We will publish scientific contributions such as Original Articles, Review Articles, Case Reports, Case Series, Clinical Trials, Clinical Investigations, Interesting Photographs, Radiology and EKGs and Expert Commentaries. The journal is peer reviewed and indexed. Article Submission and Peer Review is fully Online and Web Based.We believe that Science will grow if shared and hence we are keeping JGID as open access. We also are going to have a SURGE Method which is a unique pathway to promote the publication of research via guidance by experts.SURGE is a Concept Founded and Promoted by the Journal of Emergencies, Trauma and Shock (JETS) and adopted by Journal of Global Infectious Diseases. (JGID)Research is conducted to add knowledge on a topic. Research interests vary across the globe. If science has to grow it is important that research be accepted, inspected and respected from every corner of the world. There are many times that research material is good but lacks the presentation format which is needed to package and present the outcomes.The mission of the JGID Team is to allow investigators across the world to have to their pleasure a high quality international publication to publish and promote research for others to gain knowledge.We at JGID intend to maintain our high quality by accepting research of high quality. We also intend to help good research and researchers improvise their work to bring it to a super quality which meets global standards.The SURGE Initiative is something which the JGID Team prides to be associated with. The way SURGE works is as soon as an article is submitted to JGID the Editorial Administrator decides about the potential of the article for publication. When the article is considered as a potential publication it is assigned to Expert Internal Editors who then decide whether it will go for External Peer Review or it will stay back for Expert Guidance for improvisation before being sent out for peer review.The improvisation process involves personal guidance by Expert Internal Editors to the authors via emails. This process involves implementing suggestions regarding writing skills, grammatical correction, study design layouts, data analysis, presentation, and referencing and outcome modifications. The Experts make an extra effort to spend time on such articles so that the articles reach a quality high enough to meet the standard of JGID.Scientific Writing is an art learnt over time. Convincing Editors to publish is like selling a product based on written material alone. Getting the message across in best possible manner with least possible hurdles is a skill which needs practice over and over again. Using correct sentences, words, phrases, messages are all a part of convincible research writing leading to acceptable publishing.Today the international research arena is dominated by nations where research and researchers flourish. This has lead to disparity in research communication merely due to difference in standards of research across nations with economic variations.We at JGID hope to bridge the gap as we believe in equality of research. If quality is a question we at JGID strive hard to make it standardized. SURGE allows scientists with good research but deficient publishing skills to better their work for the global audience at a level equally applicable to all across the globe.We invite Clinicians, Nurses, Basic Scientists, Public Health Experts and Policy Makers to join our mission and use JGID as a vehicle to publish their research, commentaries, and experiences thus bringing the global scientific community together.www.jgid.orgPlease visit our website. Continuous interaction and exchange of ideas will lead the progress of science.Welcome aboard!JGID is an international peer-reviewed journal founded by a network of experts across the globe who recognized themselves as the International Infectiologists Network. The mission of JGID is to promote and publish infectious diseases research in areas of basic sciences, clinical medicine and public health.JGID encourages research, education and dissemination of knowledge in the field of Infectious Diseases across the world thus promoting translational research by striking a synergy between basic science, clinical medicine and public health. The Journal intends to bring together scientists and academicians in Infectious Diseases to promote translational synergy between Laboratory Science, Clinical Medicine and Public Health. The Journal invites Original Articles, Clinical Investigations, Epidemiological Analysis, Data Protocols, Case Reports, Clinical Photographs, review articles and special commentaries. Students, Residents, Academicians, Public Health experts and scientists are all encouraged to be a part of this initiative by contributing, reviewing and promoting scientific works and scienceThe journal will be published semiannually in 2009, four monthly in 2010 and quarterly from 2011. .The journal allows free access (Open Access) to its contents and permits authors to self-archive final accepted version of the articles on any OAI-compliant institutional/subject-based repository. The journal does not charge for submission, processing or publication of manuscripts and even for color reproduction of photographs.Online Submission Site: www.journalonweb.com/jgidThe journal is indexed with Caspur, DOAJ, EBSCO Publishing's Electronic Databases, Expanded Academic ASAP, Genamics JournalSeek, Google Scholar, Health & Wellness Research Center, Health Reference Center Academic, Hinari, Index Copernicus, OpenJGate, SCOLOAR, Ulrich's International Periodical DirectoryThe journal will be published semiannually in 2009, four monthly in 2010 and quarterly from 2011. .Medknow Publications, a publisher of open access peer-reviewed, scientific journals, is committed to the improving the visibility and accessibility of the science from the developing world. Its endeavor in continuously re-inventing the publishing methodology for about a decade has resulted in high quality peer-reviewed scholarly journals. Medknow pioneers in ‘fee-less-free’ model of open access publishing and provides immediate free access to the electronic editions of the journals without charging the author or author's institution for submission, processing or publication of the articles.www.doaj.org) and are part of HINARI. All the journals provide RSS feeds which is also ATOM enabled. All the issues are also available in XML format. The open access policy has resulted in more than a half a million article downloads in a month for all the journals.Medknow, with over 80 print + online journals, is probably the largest open access publisher of print journals in the world which does not charge author or author institution for submission, processing or publication of articles. Each journal published by Medknow has its independent website. The websites use the OpenURL standard, making it easy for libraries to link users as directly as possible from citation to the full text of the article. These journals are searchable from DOAJ (


Dear Editor,et al., for their paper titled ’Masters theses from a University medical college – Publication in indexed scientific journals’.[Congratulations to Dhaliwal ournals’. It is thournals’. We shareThe publication rate of 30% in this report is very good. However, the number of publications from the institution could have additionally been ascertained from the respective departments, as the departments would best know their publications. Additionally, the authors could have evaluated the effect of clinical specialties versus non-clinical specialties on the publication rate. There is a perception among medical college faculty that the publications tend to be higher in non-clinical subjects.Knowledgeable guides are vital to thesis development. Rehashing earlier topics also results in unworthiness for publication, but we often find several successive theses on the same topic - one of us (SN) recently evaluated five Masters’ theses. Four of these were related to cataract; three compared outcomes and complications in phacoemulsification, manual small incision surgery and standard extra-capsular surgeries in various permutations and combinations! Someone was reinventing the wheel! The topics should have been rejected in the synopsis stage. A mechanism for checking repetition of topics is imperative for all universities. We could also add poor funding, absence of good diagnostics, lack of follow-up and poor documentation as other causes – but there are many solutions available to these problems.For guides and residents alike, there are many advantages of choosing potentially publishable topics. Publications enhance the reputation of the department and the institution. They are Medical Council of India (MCI) requirements for promotions. Those plSome good theses do not get published as they are never sent for publication; the resident after course completion is busy finding suitable employment or further career openings, and has no time to think of publication. Here again, the guides could lend a helping hand in facilitating submission for publication, lest the knowledge gained by the research work remains in the archives of the institutional library.


High predictive validity – that is, a strong association between the outcome of peer review  and the scientific quality of a manuscript submitted to a journal (measured as citations of the later published paper) – does not as a rule suffice to demonstrate the usefulness of peer review for the selection of manuscripts. To assess usefulness, it is important to include in addition the base rate  and the selection rate (the proportion of submissions accepted).Angewandte Chemie International Edition (AC-IE), we present a general approach for determining the usefulness of peer reviews for the selection of manuscripts for publication. The results of our study show that peer review is useful: 78% of the submissions accepted by AC-IE are correctly accepted for publication when the editor's decision is based on one review, 69% of the submissions are correctly accepted for publication when the editor's decision is based on two reviews, and 65% of the submissions are correctly accepted for publication when the editor's decision is based on three reviews.Taking the example of the high-impact journal The paper points out through what changes in the selection rate, base rate or validity coefficient a higher success rate (utility) in the AC-IE selection process could be achieved. Reputable scientific journals only publish manuscripts that have been subjected to peer review – that is, critical scrutiny by scientific experts. When a manuscript is submitted, reviewers who are researching and publishing work in the same field (peers) are asked to evaluate the content of the manuscript  and recommend to the editor that the manuscript be published, revised and then published, or rejected Angewandte Chemie International Edition (AC-IE). AC-IE is a chemistry journal with a higher annual Journal Impact Factor (JIF)  than the JIFs of comparable journals . It is a journal of the German Chemical Society (Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh), Frankfurt am Main, Germany) and is published by Wiley-VCH . The journal introduced peer review in 1982, primarily in conjunction with one of the document types published in the journal, “Communications,” which are short reports on works in progress or recently concluded experimental or theoretical investigations. What the editors of AC-IE look for most of all is excellence in chemical research. Submissions that reviewers deem to be of high quality are selected for publication.We have examined in three publications For the investigation of the predictive validity of the AC-IE publication decisions citation counts for the accepted and rejected (but published elsewhere) manuscripts were used. In the absence of other operationalizable criteria, a conventional approach is to use citation counts as a proxy for research quality, since they measure the international impact of scientific work not have the scientific potential for publication and rejected it, when it actually did – as reflected in a high scientific impact subsequent to publication. We found that the AC-IE editors' decisions regarding 15% of the manuscripts demonstrate a type I error (accepted manuscripts that did not perform as well as or worse than the average rejected manuscript) Using an approach developed by Bornmann et al. In the present study, we expand the approach that we used in previous investigations of the predictive validity of the manuscript selection process at AC-IE to include the model developed by Taylor and Russell The importance of the base rate and selection rate in assessment of a selection process was established by Taylor and Russell The model consists of four parameters xyr indicates the strength of the relationship between the predictor value  and the criterion value .The validity coefficient The base rate is the percentage of submissions that are ‘qualified‘ submissions. Qualified submissions are papers that are fundamentally suitable for publication. After publication they are comparatively frequently cited.The selection rate is the percentage of submissions that are accepted for publication.The success rate is the percentage of submissions accepted that are qualified submissions. This percentage can either be computed from the available data, as shown in the following, or taken from the tables provided by Taylor and Russell xyr>0), the points of all submissions produce a point cloud in the form of an ellipse. However, if xyr = 1 or xyr = −1 the result is a line , and if xyr = 0, the result is a circle .The three graphs  in Areas AQ and RN in the three graphs of Based on the number of submissions found in each of the four areas, it is possible to calculate the base rate, selection rate, and success rate:If there is no correlation between the selection process and the success rate (then the point cloud is a circle) and the base and selection rates are 50% , only one-half of the accepted submissions will be qualified , as a result there would be more qualified than non-qualified submissions among the accepted submissions. Another possible way to increase the success of a manuscript selection process is to reduce the selection rate. However, this measure is only successful if there is a correlation between the outcome of peer review and the scientific quality of a submission . If the vertical line (the predictor cutoff) in graph B in However, the success of a manuscript selection process can also be increased by raising the base rate and thus the number of submissions fundamentally suitable  for publication. This can be achieved, for example, through successful submission policy . Even if a manuscript selection process is not valid (xyr = .5 (see graph B in Taylor and Russell xyr = .5), in graph C submissions will hardly be selected that later turn out to be non-qualified . According to the corresponding Taylor-Russell table, with a base rate of 80%, a selection rate of 30%, and a validity coefficient of xyr = .5, 94% of submissions accepted for publication are correctly accepted. However, as graph C shows, also many submissions are rejected that would have been fundamentally suitable for publication.In contrast to graph B, in graph C in A manuscript submitted to AC-IE is usually subject to internal and external review. First, editors at the journal evaluate whether the manuscript contributes to the development of an important area of research . If the editors find this to be the case, the submitted manuscript is sent to usually three independent reviewers ; the reviewers are asked to review it using an evaluation form and a comment sheet. The reviewers know the authors' identities, but their reviews are not signed (single blinding). In the year 2000 the AC-IE evaluation form for reviewers contained the following four questions (in 2008 this was changed to five questions): (1) ‘How important do you consider the results?’ ; (2) ‘Do the data obtained by experiment or calculation verify the hypothesis and conclusions?’ ; (3) ‘Is the length of the manuscript appropriate to its contents?’ ; (4) ‘Do you recommend acceptance of the Communication?’ . If reviewers find a manuscript unsuitable for AC-IE, they are asked to name another journal in which the study findings might more suitably be published. Once they have received the reviewers' reports, the editors make the decision to accept or reject a manuscript for publication.Our previous findings show that in general a manuscript is published in AC-IE only if two reviewers rate the results of the study as ‘important’ or ‘very important’ (on question 1 above) and also recommend publication in the journal (do not answer ‘no’ to question 4 above) Decision rules like the AC-IE's ‘clear-cut rule’ have become a new research topic in recent publications on the journal peer review process n = 878) were accepted for publication in AC-IE, and 54% (n = 1021) were rejected. A search in the literature databases Science Citation Index (SCI) (Thomson Reuters) and Chemical Abstracts (CA)  revealed that of the 1021 rejected manuscripts, 959 (94%) were later published in 136 other (different) journals. For accepted manuscripts and manuscripts that were rejected (but published elsewhere), we determined the number of citations for a fixed time window of three years after the publication year. “Fixed citation windows are a standard method in bibliometric analysis, in order to give equal time spans for citation to articles published in different years, or at different times in the same year” http://www.cas.org/).For the investigation of the manuscript selection process at AC-IE, we used information on all 1899 manuscripts that went through internal and external review in the year 2000. Of the 1899 manuscripts, 46% ” w) (where W refers to ‘world’) relates the number of citations obtained by the set of papers evaluated to the number of citations received by a same number of papers published in journals dedicated to the respective discipline, field or subfield” w for the manuscripts in this study, specific reference standards were used that refer to the subject areas of CA w in this study, the number of citations for accepted or rejected (but published elsewhere) manuscripts were divided by the (arithmetic) mean number of citations of all publications in a corresponding subject area w quotient allows determination of whether the citation impact of the accepted and rejected (but published elsewhere) manuscripts is far below (Rw<0.5), below (Rw = 0.5–0.8), approximately the same as (Rw = 0.8–1.2), above (Rw = 1.2–1.5), or far above (Rw>1.5) the international (primarily the Western world) citation impact baseline for the corresponding subject areas. With Rw values above 1.5, the probability of identifying excellent contributions is very high To find out whether a publication has a high or low citation impact, its performance is compared with international scientific reference standards Of all 1837 manuscripts published in the AC-IE (accepted manuscripts) or another journal (rejected manuscripts), 906 could be included in the analysis of this study. The reduced number was due to missing values for one or more of the variables included in this study. Reviewer's ratings were not available for all manuscripts; for example, some reviewers filled out only the comment sheet and did not fill out the evaluation form with the 2 questions . In addition, for some manuscripts, no citation counts and/or reference values were available w>1.5 (criterion cutoff). Hence, all submissions with Rw>1.5 were categorized as qualified  and all submission with Rw≤1.5 as non-qualified .If the usefulness of peer reviewing for the manuscript selection process is determined using the model developed by Taylor and Russell w criterion cutoff is plotted as a red line starting from the y-axis. As the Rw values were logarithmized (log(x+1)) in order that the distribution of data more likely approximates a normal distribution one review; for the submissions in graphs B and C the editor made the publication decisions based on two and three reviews, respectively. In all three graphs in In the three graphs  in The three graphs show accepted manuscripts as blue circles and rejected manuscripts as red circles. The distributions of the blue and red circles in the graphs make it clearly visible that for nearly all of the manuscripts, values for the reviewers' ratings above a certain predictor cutoff led to acceptance by the AC-IE editor and values below the cutoff led to rejection. When the publication decision is based on one review, the predictor cutoff is 3; when the publication decision is based on two and three reviews, this value is 6 and 8.5, respectively. As the reviewers usually recommend that a submission should be published if it is in their opinion important, the above-mentioned “clear-cut rule” at AC-IE results in most cases in an unambiguous assignment of the reviewers' ratings to the editorial decisions. For only a few manuscripts is this not the case. As presented in Bornmann and Daniel w) cutoffs, we determined for the submissions in the three graphs of xyr = .34 (with one review), xyr = .26 (with two reviews), and xyr = .17 (with three reviews). Given the typical use of two or three reviewers assigned to manuscripts submitted to a journal, we would expect to see that the use of more reviewers per manuscript yields more valid recommendations and thus greater utility. But, the validity coefficients actually drop with more reviews per manuscript. This unexpected result is due to the usual decision process of the AC-IE editors: They wait for further reviews when a publication decision does not seem possible on the received reviews w) for one review (first review) and two reviews (first and second review) for those 205 manuscripts that have received three reviews. This analyses show the expected order of coefficients: xyr = .05 (with one review), xyr = .11 (with two reviews) and xyr = .17 (with three reviews).On the basis of the predictor (reviewers' ratings) and criterion (RIf Eq. (3) is used for calculating the success rates for AC-IE, 78% of the submissions accepted are correctly accepted for publication (with a predictor cutoff>3) when the editor's decision is based on one review, 69% of the submissions are correctly accepted for publication (with a predictor cutoff>6) when the editor's decision is based on two reviews, and 65% of the submissions are correctly accepted for publication when the editor's decision is based on three reviews (with a predictor cutoff>8.5). As the values in xyr = .2 and xyr = .3, respectively, it is difficult, to achieve considerably better success rates than base rates using the predictor (the reviewers' ratings). Using the tables in Taylor and Russell xyr = .55 – for example by reviewers having precise information on what makes a manuscript a high quality manuscript  and information on how high the selection rate at AC-IE is – then according to the Taylor-Russell table, with a base rate of 60% and a selection rate of 40%, there would be 81% submissions accepted that are qualified submissions – an approximately 20 percentage-point gain in utility over the base rate. About the same gain could be achieved through lowering the selection rate to about 5% – with an unchanged validity coefficient and unchanged base rate.Independently of the number of reviews on which the editor's decision is based, the percentage of submissions accepted that are qualified submissions is above the base rates; however, the differences between the base rates and success rates are not large. But with base rates of approximately 60% in the AC-IE selection process and validity coefficients of In this paper we presented an approach that in addition to validity points to the importance of the base rate and selection rate for determining the utility of peer review for editors' publication decisions. High predictive validity (meaning a high correlation between the outcome of peer review and the scientific impact of the later publication) does not inevitably mean that the ratings of the reviewers are very useful for the selection of submissions. In addition to considering the base rate and selection rate when evaluating a manuscript selection process, according to Cascio The Taylor and Russell Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP) conducts an access review The second step should be pre-selection using a pre-screening procedure, so that the later time-consuming and costly process is carried out only for those submissions that seem potentially suitable. A successful pre-selection increases the base rate for the subsequent selection process. For example, the journal Following similar procedures to those used at ACP, editors and reviewers at other journals could conduct initial pre-screenings of submitted papers to check whether the manuscripts are basically suitable for publication in the journal and whether there are compelling arguments against publication in the journal. The task of the actual review process with extensive commenting would then be to mainly formulate recommendations for improvement of the submitted manuscript and if necessary to recommend a more suitable journal for publication of the manuscript.The usefulness of peer review for editors' decisions to accept submissions for publication cannot be fully determined using Taylor and Russell's t = 1) to determine the ex-ante suitability of a paper (at t = 0). Yet, there are many things that could have happened between t = 0 and t = 1 that could have contributed to the citation count, without the paper being ‘good.’ For instance, the journal could have risen in attractiveness or ranking, thereby motivating more scholars to cite papers of this journal. Or, the topic of a paper could have been on the peak of a “fashion wave”, i.e., a hot topic w> and <1.5 to measure ‘suitability.’ This is an the ‘experience-based’ assignment There are some limitations of our study that we would like to point out: First, we used post-publication above average citation counts as the measure for deeming a submission ‘suitable for publication.’ It can be questioned, whether citation counts is a measure of publication suitability? Recently, Straub


If you cannot make your peers understand your message, then you are bound to have manuscripts rejected or to have difficulties getting your valuable research published, read, and perused. The challenge for the scientist clinician is to present readable papers of general interest for judgment by editors, editorial board members, and peer reviewers while soundly describing the methods in a way that is recognizable to any knowledgeable scientist. Furthermore, the editors and governors of any Journal have the responsibility to ensure that the contributors' work receives the highest possible visibility by ensuring proper indexing and tracking."Getting your message through" is the The Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine (SJTREM) is a peer-reviewed international journal indexed in PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus, and Google Scholar. In addition, SJTREM has recently been accepted for indexing by MEDLINE. Decisions on tracking in EMBASE and by Thomson Reuters will occur shortly. The Journal is directed towards all health professionals involved in pre- and in-hospital emergency medicine and surgery, critical care, and trauma management. While SJTREM was primarily intended for a Scandinavian and Northern-European audience , it has High quality scientific papers begin with a sound research design -7. In adlevel of evidence is attributed to the type of study design used , what was done, what was found, and what the results mean. Hence, we suggest structuring the text of original research articles into headings summarised by the mnemonic acronym IMRAD  [Readers and editors of a paper need to know what was cussion) ,13,24. TThe introduction or background section should be brief, but to the point, and should tell readers why the study was undertaken . A strai"who, what, why, when, and where?" This section should include information regarding how the study was planned and designed, the included patient population, and how the sample was selected/recruited. Additionally, the means used to gather information must be presented along with the statistical methods and the statistical package used for analysis.The methods section answers the questions In the results section, authors should report the actual study sample . If necessary, this information can be presented in a flow chart. Additionally, authors should describe the outcomes and results, addressing one topic per paragraph, and working from the most important topic to the least important topic. Remember that the results should be presented objectively, without any qualitative words, evaluations, or interpretations; these statements belong in the discussion section. Tables and illustrations are meant as a supplement to the text, and the fewest possible number of tables and illustrations should be used. Data in tables and figures should be presented in the manner that results in the most clarity. One point worth stressing is that authors should avoid including tables with large amounts of data, as readers may find these too busy and difficult to read. All tables and figures should be comprehensible without referring to the text, and should have titles that are succinct and sufficiently self-explanatory .The discussion section should begin with a clear and unambiguous summary of the key findings in no more than two or three sentences. Next, it must include a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the study. This should be followed by a comparison of the results with those from other published work. Only the major relevant works that confirm and contradict the findings should be cited. Next, this section should discuss what the study might indicate, explain the findings, and describe whether and how the study has increased the understanding of the field. Finally, authors should discuss what questions remain unanswered and suggest future work in the area ,25,26.The SJTREM strives to publish articles that are timely, credible, and enjoyable to read. We aim to publish original, important, and well-documented peer-reviewed research articles. The Editors expect authors to follow good standards and ethics for publication, and will take action regarding any report or detection of fraudulent research or scientific misconduct. We encourage authors to use SJTREM as a publication venue for reviews and original research papers in pre- and in-hospital emergency medicine and surgery, critical care, and trauma management, and we encourage authors to follow these guidelines for study design and presentation to ensure high quality scientific communication.


In addition to publishing science of the highest quality, the journal aims to improve both the peer-review process and the presentation of new research results.The new open-access journal  The eLife initiative is an unprecedented collaboration between the funders and practitioners of life and biomedical science, aiming to catalyse fundamental change in research communication. Motivated by the tremendous opportunities afforded through digital media, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society and the Wellcome Trust have come together with the research community to create a new and transformative journal, as a first step in the broader eLife project.The three legs of eLife's initial mission are: to publish outstanding science under an open-access license; to create an unparalleled editorial process that is decisive, fair and efficient; and to fully utilize digital media in the presentation of new research. The guiding principle of the project is to serve the interests of science, scholars and society.Since the announcement of the project in 2011, we have recruited a world-class community of academic editors to run the journal along with a staff team of experienced professionals. In partnership with a number of different organizations, we have also established much of the essential publishing infrastructure required to meet eLife's objectives.eLife opened for submissions in mid-June, and within two months about 100 submissions had been received, including several exceptional articles that met the standards for scientific excellence required for publication in eLife. A key goal for eLife is to eliminate unnecessary delays in the publication process, and the fact that the first articles were accepted in August demonstrates that our editorial and peer-review processes are equal to this challenge.eLife journal website is still several weeks away, we have been considering ways to avoid any unnecessary delays in publishing these articles. To that end, from October 2012, we are listing articles on the eLife website as soon as they are ready to be published and releasing the articles themselves on PubMed Central (PMC), the public archive for life and biomedical science literature at the US National Library of Medicine. The articles are available in full-text HTML and fully formatted PDF versions. They are the final published versions, each one complete with a broadly accessible summary (the eLife Digest). Each of the first four articles is also accompanied by an Insight article, which offers the perspective of an expert in the field.Given that we were able to accept several articles quickly and that the launch of the One article identifies a critical signalling molecule involved in the interaction between a primitive eukaryote and a bacterium, which is an important advance in efforts to understand the evolution of multicellularity. This article received substantial publicity after one of the principal authors, Nicole King, presented the work  at the Society for Developmental Biology meeting, and then posted the accepted article on her own lab website. The article was downloaded over 1000 times in the first 30 days.The initial collection of content covers a broad range of topics, reflecting our goal to encompass biomedical and life science from the most basic research through to translational, applied and clinical work. second article, which uncovers how fission yeast deploys the same cellular machinery in an unusual and very different way from other organisms. Another article describes the results of a two-year field trial that demonstrates how a specific group of chemicals released by plants in response to herbivore attack can increase the plants' fitness. And to complete this collection of four articles, a significant advance in aging research is provided by researchers who show that a hormone involved in the response to starvation dramatically increases the lifespan of mice in which it is overexpressed. As well as representing diverse areas of research, importantly, the four articles send a strong signal about the calibre of the science that we seek to publish at eLife.How cells cope with the stress of poorly folded proteins is the theme of a elifesciences.org over the coming weeks, with links to the content in PMC. But it is at the eLife journal website where we will have the most scope to experiment and explore new territory in research communication, beginning with the release of the initial version of the site towards the end the year—part 2 of the eLife journal launch.Newly published articles will continue to be added to the list at eLife, where they will benefit from a constructive and swift publishing experience, a flexible online platform that allows them to tell their research story in full alongside other outstanding work, and the full recognition and attention of peers and interested readers without limit.We hope that these first articles will inspire many more of our colleagues throughout the world to submit their best work to eLife off to such a flying start.We would like to close by thanking our supporters, along with editorial and staff colleagues for their hard work and commitment in getting us this far, and especially the initial authors, who have taken a bold step to get


Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine is a peer reviewed journal for rapid dissemination of high-quality research related to the dynamically developing areas of human, molecular and medical genetics. The journal publishes original research articles covering novel fi ndings in phenotypic, molecular, biological, and genomic aspects of genomic variation, inherited disorders and birth defects. The broad publishing spectrum of Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine includes rare and common disorders from diagnosis to treatment. Examples of appropriate articles include reports of novel disease genes, functional studies of genetic variants, in-depth genotype-phenotype studies, genomic analysis of inherited disorders, molecular diagnostic methods, medical bioinformatics, ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI), and novel approaches to clinical diagnosis. We anticipate that Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine will provide a high quality scientifi c home for next generation sequencing studies of rare and common disorders, which will make novel fi ndings in this fascinating area easily and rapidly accessible to the scientific community. This will serve as the basis for translating next generation sequencing studies into individualized diagnostics and therapeutics, for day-to-day medical care.Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine publishes original research articles, reviews, and research methods papers, along with invited editorials and commentaries. Original research papers must report well-conducted research with conclusions supported by the data presented.Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine is a Wiley Open Access journal, one of a series of peer reviewed titles publishing quality research with speed and effi ciency. For further information visit the Wiley Open Access website.Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine are fully open access: immediately freely available to read, download and share. All Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine articles are published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.All articles published by Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine is retained by the author(s). Authors grant Wiley a license to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher. Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its integrity is maintained and its original authors, citation details and publisher are identifi ed. Further information about open access license and copyright can be found here.Copyright on any research article in a journal published by http://offprint.cosprinters.com (Email: offprint@cosprinters.com)As this is an open access journal, you have free, unlimited access to your article online. However, if you wish to obtain printed reprints, these may be ordered online: The Publisher and Editors cannot be held responsible for errors or any consequences arising from the use of information contained in this journal; the views and opinions expressed do not necessarily refl ect those of the Publisher and Editors, neither does the publication of advertisements constitute any endorsements by the Publisher and Editors of the products advertised. Wiley Open Access articles posted to repositories or websites are without warranty from Wiley of any kind, either express or implied, including, but not limited to, warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. To the fullest extent permitted by law Wiley disclaims all liability for any loss or damage arising out of, or in connection with, the use of or inability to use the content.