Ethical misconduct is not a new issue in the history of science and literature. However, ethical misconducts in science have grown considerably in the modern era which is due to emphasis on the scientific proliferation in research institutes and gauging scientists according to their publications. In the current case series, several misconducts occurring over the previous years in Mashhad University of Medical Sciences  either for Journals or Faculty members were gathered and specific recommendations were provided to avoid similar events in the future. All recommendations are according to Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). He asked the readers not to use his words without citing him as the author. However, a century later Attar (famous Persian poet) extensively used Revelation of the Veiled in his famous book Biographies of the Saints without citing Al-Hajvery  either for Journals Faculty members were gathered and specific recommendations were provided to avoid similar events in the future. All recommendations are according to Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) . Case: A postgraduate medical student complained to the vice chancellery of research of her university that she has not been included in the authors list of an article which was prepared using the results of her thesis. The senior researcher involved in her thesis claimed that she has forgotten to include the student as an author. The issue was discussed and the student refused to pursue the case any further.RecommendationsCOPE is very straightforward regarding authorship disputes. For adding or omitting an author, a request should be sent to the publishing journal. The journal will ask the permission of all authors and correction would be made only if all authors consent. In the mentioned case, this could have been done too , 4. Case: Researcher SR included a senior researcher of another department to the authors list of his article. Although the senior researcher was not aware of, he thanked SR upon receiving a copy of the published article in a prestigious journal.RecommendationsThis is a clear case of guest or gift authorship. It is not recommended to add a researcher to the authors list of an article if he/she is not involved in the research to justify the authorship. If an editor finds out about a gift authorship, removal of the suspected gift author is the recommendation of COPE. Long authors list (for example for simple case reports) can alert the editors of possible gift authorship . It is sCase: MK the author of a researcher, aimed to include a figure of a textbook in his manuscript which was going to be submitted to a journal with high impact factor. He asked another co-researcher in this regard. His colleague recommended asking permission to reproduce the figure from the publisher of the book. MK emailed the publisher and permission was granted without any charge.RecommendationsCopyright violation is a common neglected misconduct in countries that do not observe copyright law. Reproducing any part of an article or book  definitely needs permission from copyright holder. The copyright holder is usually the publisher not the authors since the authors usually have transferred the copyright to the publisher upon submission of their manuscripts. This is why we should contact publisher not the authors for asking permission. Data fabricationCase: A junior researcher published an article in a PUBMED indexed journal. The senior researcher of the organization read the article and noticed the striking resemblance of the article topic with one of his accepted research projects which was still in the patient recruiting phase. They asked the junior researcher for raw data of his research and he was unable to provide the data. Finally he admitted that he fabricated the data to prepare the manuscript. RecommendationsData fabrication is a serious act of misconduct which usually goes unnoticed, however, once detected, it can bring disgrace to the researcher, his/her institute or even his/her country. Hwang Woo-suk case of data fabrication is the most famous in this regard . RetractEditorial misconductCase: Upon acceptance of a manuscript prepared by researcher (RS), editor in chief of a journal asked him to add an article published in their journal in the reference list of the accepted manuscript. RS accepted and added a reference and the article was published.RecommendationsThis is a case of editorial misconduct with the main aim of increasing impact factor. This is discouraged by COPE , HoweverLocal ethics committee and its importanceCase: HK is a researcher who published an article which was the result of a research project with approval of local ethics committee of his institution. Another researcher expressed his concern regarding the ethical issues of the published article in a letter to editor. The editor in-chief asked HK to provide documents of ethics committee approval. HK provided the documents and explained his point of view in response to the published letter to editor. RecommendationsThis case shows the importance of local ethics committee approval. Journals usually ask authors to clearly mention the approval of ethics committee in their manuscripts. Researchers should get the local ethics committee approval for their research before conducting any experiment on human or animal subjects. Actually COPE recommends its members not to publish any article without appropriate ethics committee approval . EditorsCase: HA submitted a manuscript to two journals simultaneously. The decision of the editorial boards of both journals was acceptance with minor revision. She asked her colleagues for advice. Finally she emailed the editor in-chief of one of the journals and withdrew her submission. The article was published in the other journal.Case: VD submitted a manuscript to a journal. After couple of months of not hearing from the editorial board, he re-submitted the manuscript to another journal. A day after re-submission, he received an email from the first journal that his article was going to be accepted after minor revisions. He withdrew the re-submission from the second journal and article was published in the first journal. RecommendationsThe authors are usually asked to mention in a signed form that their submission is not under review elsewhere. Any violation of this signed form is considered as misconduct . The proRedundant publicationCase: RB is a researcher who had previously published an article in a local journal of his country in his mother tongue. He prepared another article of his research in English and submitted it to another journal. The manuscript was accepted for publication. However, the editor in-chief of the English journal managed to find out about the first article and asked the author to clarify the issue. RB asked for a permission from the first journal to publish the article in English in another journal which was granted. The English article was published and the case was resolved.RecommendationsThis is a case of redundant publication. The authors usually are asked to give a signed statement that the manuscript they are submitting has not been published elsewhere. Any violation of this statement is misconduct and can end in retraction of a published article. If a translation of a previously published article is going to be submitted to another journal, permission of the first journal should be taken beforehand with appropriate reference to the first publication .Case: A junior researcher prepared a manuscript from the results of a thesis and the manuscript was published in a prestigious journal. A month after publication, the junior researcher was contacted from the editor in-chief with the concern of plagiarism. He responded that he used a ghost writer to prepare the manuscript. The editor in-chief retracted the article due to plagiarism detected in the published article.RecommendationsPlagiarism is a misconduct which is usually acted upon by a junior researchers who are not aware of the legal issues of “copying and pasting” from another article . EditorsRecent surge of published researches and measuring researchers according to their scientific output can implicitly or explicitly cause misconducts in the publication of the research results. All researchers should be aware of these misconducts and their legal consequences. The above mentioned cases indeed happened and can be repeated in the future and some of them can be career ending and very serious. Future misconducts can hopefully be prevented by this case series.


Sir,An open-access model is a relative recent concept in academic publishing. In contrast to the subscription model, its full potential is yet to be explored, especially by Indian psychiatrists. In brief, fee-based open access are the online journals for which users are granted an irrevocable, world-wide, perpetual access without any financial or other barriers and the authors (or the sponsoring Institute) bear the cost involved in making it publicly accessible. The peerHowever, the issue we want to raise is: Are the researchers from developing world likely to derive an overall benefit from an open-access model based on pay for publication? How does this trend affect mental health research from India in the long run?Over 85% of the world’s population lives in the 153 countries categorized as low and middle income, which generates only 2% of the published mental health research. The research gap has been well documented.2Unlike the print issues, fee-based open-access journals have no definite limit on the number of published articles. It overcomes the space constraints of a print journal but leads to a great increase in the average number of publications per year, most of which are likely to come only from the high income countries. Quite possibly, the gap in published research from developed and developing countries will further widen. The published literature is instrumental in shaping the future of psychiatry and bringing a change. How much will we contribute toward that change in the coming future?Indian Journal of Psychiatry, is a welcome step and likely to bridge some of the gap. In several parts of India, the institutes or colleges lack infrastructure/funding for library, resulting in unavailability of latest issues or common journals. With open access, all you need is an internet access. May be, in future, we will have indigenous, affordable fee-based open-access journals or more avenues for sponsorships or Institute support. With an ever-increasing numbers of fee-based open-access journals across the world, only time will tell if we would be able to grow with the trend or slip further behind? Hope not.Along with the caution, there is some hope too. The free online availability of research articles may introduce new ideas or themes to undertake research studies and could fuel more research. The recent availability of no-fee open access for several Indian journals, including


Bibliographic data can be used to map the research quality and productivity of a discipline. We hypothesized that bibliographic data would identify geographic differences in research capacity, species specialization, and interdisciplinary relationships within the veterinary profession that corresponded with demographic and economic indices.Using the SCImago portal, we retrieved veterinary journal, article, and citation data in the Scopus database by year (1996–2011), region, country, and publication in species-specific journals , as designated by Scopus. In 2011, Scopus indexed 165 journals in the veterinary subject area, an increase from 111 in 1996. As a percentage of veterinary research output between 1996 and 2010, Western Europe and North America (US and Canada) together accounted for 60.9% of articles and 73.0% of citations. The number of veterinary articles increased from 8815 in 1996 to 19,077 in 2010 (net increase 66.6%). During this time, publications increased by 21.0% in Asia, 17.2% in Western Europe, and 17.0% in Latin America, led by Brazil, China, India, and Turkey. The United States had the highest number of articles in species-specific journals. As a percentage of regional output, the proportion of articles in small animal and equine journals was highest in North America and the proportion of articles in food animal journals was highest in Africa. Based on principal component analysis, total articles were highly correlated with gross domestic product (based on World Bank data). The proportion of articles in small animal and equine journals was associated with gross national income, research and development, and % urban population, as opposed to the proportion of food animal articles, agricultural output, and % rural population. Co-citations linked veterinary medicine with medicine in the United States, with basic sciences in Eastern Europe and the Far East, and with agriculture in most other regions and countries.Bibliographic data reflect the demographic changes affecting veterinary medicine worldwide and provide insight into current and changing global research capacity, specialization, and interdisciplinary affiliations. A more detailed analysis of species-specific trends is warranted and could contribute to a better understanding of educational and workforce needs in veterinary medicine. Veterinary medicine is a diverse profession with strong historic roots in war (horses) and agriculture (livestock for food and fiber) ,2. DurinVeterinary journals reflect the research and clinical practice trends and priorities of the veterinary profession around the world. Bibliometric data for scientific publications can be used to assess journal quality, map worldwide trends in research productivity and quality, and evaluate interdisciplinary alliances ,15. BiblData from the Scopus database were retrieved between Dec 2011 and Sept 2012 by using the SCImago portal . CountriThe most current journal data 2011) obtained for the subject area “Veterinary” included the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) indicator, H-index, total and citable articles (last 3 years), total citations (last 3 years), self-citations (last 3 years), citations/article (last 2 years), number of cited and uncited articles, years of coverage, country of publication, publisher, and subject category . The SJR is a prestige metric of journal impact based on the Scopus database that considers both the quantity of citations  and the quality of citations  11 obtain. The jouVeterinary article data for regions and countries were obtained for the 14-year period 1996–2010 combined and for 1996 and 2010 (the most recent year for which data were available) separately. Data included the H index (for countries), total and citable articles, citations, citations/article, self-citations, number of cited and uncited articles, and % of articles with international collaboration. Percent international collaboration was defined as the proportion of articles whose author affiliations included more than one country. Regional data were also obtained for each individual year between 1996 and 2010. The number and percentage of articles in species-specific journals was recorded for each country and region from 1996 to 2010 and for the entire period combined. World data were calculated manually from regional data.The following demographic and economic indicators were retrieved from the database of the World Bank : gross dCo-citation maps were visualized in SCImago for all countries for which data were available between 1996–97 and 2009–10. The discipline to which veterinary medicine was directly linked by co-citations in each year was recorded. In addition, co-citation links between veterinary subject categories  and other subject categories were also visualized and recorded. Where subject categories were linked to more than one discipline, both disciplines were recorded. The strength of co-citation links was not determined.Data were collated and computations were done in Excel . Data were analyzed statistically using JMP . Because most data were not normally distributed, median and range of values were reported. Principal component analysis was used to evaluate correlations among total articles, number and proportion of species-specific articles (using data from 1996–2010), and demographic and economic indicators. Statistical significance was set at P < 0.05.The number of veterinary journals indexed by Scopus was 109 in 1996, 111in 1999, 116 in 2005, 128 in 2007, and 165 in 2011. The net increase (n = 56) in veterinary journals in 2011 as compared with 1996 came from Western Europe (n = 17), Asia (n = 14), Latin America (n = 9), Eastern Europe (n = 6), North America (n = 5), and the Middle East (n = 5). Veterinary journal citation data, impact factor, accessibility, language, and other data were tabulated for each region , India, Germany, Brazil, Canada, France, Turkey, and Japan Table . Of counWorldwide, the number of veterinary articles published was 8815 in 1996 and 19,077 in 2010, for a net increase of 66.6% Figure .During the combined period of 1996–2010, 50,756 articles (31.1% of veterinary articles worldwide) were published in species-specific journals; of these, 15,587 50.4%) were in FA journals, 15,715 (30.9%) were in SA journals, and 11,454 (22.5%) were in EQ journals  journals Figure A. SeveraWithin the Veterinary subject area, articles in FA journals were linked by co-citations almost exclusively with Animal Science & Zoology (ASZ) journals (within ABS); articles in EQ journals were linked with ASZ and other veterinary journals (data not shown). Articles in SA journals were linked with ASZ and Medicine, and, in the US, Western Europe , South Africa, and Australia, with MISC veterinary articles. In Asia, SA and EQ articles were linked with BGM. In Singapore, SA articles were linked with a variety of medical disciplines, including radiology & ultrasound, genetics, and biotechnology. Articles in MISC journals were linked by co-citations with Immunology, Parasitology, and Microbiology in all regions except North America and the Pacific Figure B. In JapWe used bibliographic data to provide a quantitative image of the current and evolving status of veterinary research capacity, species specialization, and interdisciplinary affiliations in regions and countries around the world between 1996 and 2011. Veterinary research productivity, closely associated with GDP, was strongly dominated by Western Europe and North America, but has increased rapidly in Asia, Latin America, and to a lesser extent in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Western Europe and North America also led strongly in species specialization based on article output in FA, SA, and EQ journals. Reliance on the Scopus species-specific journal designations was a limitation, in that the majority of veterinary journals (in the MISC category) as well as other medical, animal science, and basic bioscience journals also publish species-specific veterinary articles. Because of this, the true magnitude and geographic distribution of species-specialized research remains uncertain; however, trends in this study were supported by principal component analysis, in which species emphasis aligned with opposing demographic and economic factors. Co-citation links supported strong alignment between veterinary medicine and agriculture in most countries, and also indicated distinct and evolving interdisciplinary links with medicine and basic sciences. Overall, these results provide a unique picture of the veterinary profession and its research capacity globally, and impel additional investigation into species-specific research output as an indicator of evolving education and workforce needs and priorities.The Scopus database was a logical one to use for this study because it indexes the highest percentage of core veterinary journals , indexesWestern Europe and North America, led by the US and UK, accounted for more than 60% of veterinary articles and more than 70% of citations during the past 14 years, a regional dominance that has been described previously for other biomedical disciplines . An earlSimilar to bibliographic studies in other disciplines , research output in the present study was strongly related to GDP ,15,31. TDespite increasing rates of publication, the quality and scientific impact of articles from Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe remain lower than in other regions, based on fewer citations, more self-citations and uncited articles, and lower citation metrics , parameters used as surrogates for research quality ,33. IndiAnother factor affecting regional differences in veterinary article output and quality appears to be the number of veterinary faculties relative to population, especially in Eastern Europe and Latin America, where limited resources are spread among a larger number of faculties than in other regions, making it more difficult to achieve critical mass and infrastructure for research. Although veterinary research is done not only in veterinary faculties, faculties are one indicator of a country’s capacity and structure for supporting veterinary research and education.Countries with high total article output also tended to have high numbers of species-specific articles, and differences in urbanization and economic development correlated with species specialization within regions. The US had the highest overall rate of specialization  and led the world in articles in SA-specific journals, followed by France and Western Europe in general. This SA (and to a lesser extent EQ) predominance was closely aligned with GNI and urbanization, consistent with expanding demand for companion animal specialty services in metropolitan areas, and the alignment of academic programs to meet research and training priorities for these species . NotableThe strong co-citation affiliation between agriculture and veterinary journals, especially FA journals, was consistent with the importance of livestock production and disease in much of the world. Co-citations represent intellectual relationships between journals and have been used to study the specialty structure of science through the pattern of linkages, to monitor the development of scientific fields, and to assess developing interrelationships . We noteIn the US and Switzerland, co-citation links provided tangible evidence of a recent shift in primary research affiliation from agriculture to medicine, although there could be more than one reason for this. The high output of articles in SA-specific journals, and parallels between SA and human medical practice , make SA specialization a plausible explanation. If so, other countries in Western Europe with strong SA specialization, such as the UK and France, would be expected to undergo a similar shift in the near future. North America and Western Europe also had a high frequency of co-citation links between SA and MISC veterinary journals, the latter of which include veterinary specialty journals in subdisciplines like internal medicine, cardiology, dermatology, and ophthalmology. Increased laboratory animal, public health, and zoonotic disease research, such as that promoted by the One Health initiative ,3, couldIn conclusion, bibliographic data documented geographic trends in research output and quality, species specialization, and interdisciplinary affiliations, and their relationship with demographic and economic factors that underlie many of the changes affecting the veterinary profession. Although conclusions about specialization based solely on species-specific journals are limited, it is clear that veterinary research output in the US and Western Europe has expanded notably in companion animal specialty areas, while research output in most regions of the world remains strongly focused on agriculture and food animal production. An emerging relevance gap along species lines could affect the ability of wealthy countries to contribute to veterinary training and research in developing countries, underlining concerns about the profession’s ability to meet global animal health and food security needs -4,7. FacJournals (n = 165) designated as species-specific journals in the Scopus database, and the country of journal publicationAnimal Nutrition and Feed Technology (India)Annals of Animal Science (Poland)Applied Animal Behaviour Science (Netherlands)Avian Diseases (US)Avian Pathology (UK)Domestic Animal Endocrinology (Netherlands)International Journal of Dairy Science (Pakistan)International Journal of Poultry Science (Pakistan)International Journal of Probiotics and Prebiotics (US)Journal fur Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit (Germany)Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition (UK)Journal of Swine Health and Production (US)Preventive Veterinary Medicine (Netherlands)Small Ruminant Research (Netherlands)Theriogenology (Netherlands) Tierarztliche Praxis Ausgabe G: Grosstiere-Nutztiere (Germany)Tropical Animal Health and Production (Netherlands)Veterinary Clinics of North America, Food Animal Practice (UK)Advances in Small Animal Medicine and Surgery (UK)Annals of Animal Science (Poland)Australian Veterinary Practitioner Bulletin of the European Association of Fish Pathologists (UK)Journal of Avian Medicine and Surgery (US)Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association (US)Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery (UK)Journal of Small Animal Practice (UK)PratiqueMedicaleetChirugicale de l’Animal de Compagnie (France)Pratique Vet (France), Kleintierpraxis (Germany)Theriogenology (Netherlands)Topics in Companion Animal Medicine (US)Veterinary Clinics of North America, Exotic Animal Practice (UK)Veterinary Clinics of North America, Small Animal Practice (UK)Veterinary Economics (US)Veterinary Medicine (US)Veterinary Technician (US)Equine Veterinary Education (UK)Equine Veterinary Journal (UK)Ippologia Journal of Equine Science (Japan)Journal of Equine Veterinary Science (UK)Pferdeheilkunde (Germany)Theriogenology (Netherlands)Veterinary Clinics of North America, Equine Practice (UK)Acta Veterinaria (Serbia)Acta Veterinaria Brno (Czech Republic)Acta Veterinaria Hungarica (Hungary)Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica (Denmark)American Journal of Animal and Veterinary Sciences (US)American Journal of Veterinary Research (US)Animal Feed Science and Technology (Netherlands)Animal Science Journal (UK)Animal Science Papers and Reports (Poland)Animal Welfare (UK)Ankara Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi (Turkey)Annales de Medecine Veterinaire (Belgium)Archives of Animal Nutrition (UK)Archives of Veterinary Science (Brazil)Archivos de Medicina Veterinaria (Chile)Arquivo Brasileiro de Medicina Veterinaria e Zootecnia (Brazil)Asian Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances (US)Australian Veterinary Journal Berliner und Munchener Tierarztliche Wochenschrift (Germany)BMC Veterinary Research (UK)Brazilian Journal of Veterinary Research and Animal Science (Brazil)Buffalo Bulletin (Thailand)Bulgarian Journal of Agricultural Science (Bulgaria)Bulletin of the Veterinary Institute in Pulawy (Poland)CAB Reviews: Perspectives in Agriculture, Veterinary Science, Nutrition and Natural Resources (UK)California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries, Investigations Reports (US)Canadian Journal of Veterinary Research (Canada)Canadian Veterinary Journal (Canada)Ciencia e Agrotecnologia (Brazil)Ciencia Rural (Brazil)Comparative Immunology, Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (Netherlands)Deutsche Tierarztliche Wochenschrift (Germany)Experimental Animals (Japan)Fish and Shellfish Immunology (US)In Practice (UK)Indian Journal of Animal Research (India)Indian Journal of Animal Sciences (India)Indian Veterinary Journal (India)International Journal of Applied Research in Veterinary Medicine (US)Iranian Journal of Veterinary Research (Iran)Iraqi Journal of Veterinary Sciences (Iraq)Irish Veterinary Journal (Ireland)Israel Journal of Veterinary Medicine (Israel)ITEA Informacion Tecnica Economica Agraria (Spain)Japanese Journal of Veterinary Research (Japan)Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances (Pakistan)Journal of Applied Animal Research (India)Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science (US)Journal of Aquatic Animal Health (US)Journal of Exotic Pet Medicine (Netherlands)Journal of Fish Diseases (UK)Journal of Medical Primatology (UK)Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (US)Journal of the South African Veterinary Association (South Africa)Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research (Netherlands)Journal of Veterinary Cardiology (Netherlands)Journal of Veterinary Clinics (South Korea)Journal of Veterinary Dentistry (US)Journal of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care (UK)Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine (US)Journal of Veterinary Medical Education (US)Journal of Veterinary Medicine Series C: Anatomia Histologia Embryologia (UK)Journal of Veterinary Parasitology (India)Journal of Veterinary Science (Korea)Journal of Zhejiang University. Science. B. (China)Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine (US)Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Facultesi Dergisi (Turkey)Lab Animal (UK)Laboratory Animals (UK)Large Animal Review Livestock Science (Netherlands)Magyar Allatorvosok Lapja (Hungary)Medical and Veterinary Entomology (UK)Medical Mycology (UK)Medicina Veterinaria (Spain)Medycyna Weterynaryjna (Poland)New Zealand Veterinary Journal Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research (South Africa)Pakistan Veterinary Journal (Pakistan)Pesquisa Veterinaria Brasileira (Brazil)Philippine Journal of Veterinary Medicine (Philippines)Point Veterinaire (France)Polish Journal of Veterinary Sciences (Poland)Praktische Tierarzt (Germany)Research in Veterinary Science (UK)Revista Brasileira de Parasitologia Veterinaria (Brazil)Revista Cientifica de la Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias de la Universidad del Zulia (Venezuela)Revista Colombiana de Ciencias Pecuarias (Colombia)Revista MVZ Cordoba (Spain)RevistaVeterinaria (Argentina)Revue de Medecine Veterinaire (France)Scandinavian Journal of Laboratory Animal Science (Denmark)Schweizer Archiv fur Tierheilkunde (Switzerland)Slovenian Veterinary Research (Slovenia)Tecnica Pecuaria en Mexico (Mexico)Thai Journal of Veterinary Medicine (Thailand)Tierarztliche Praxis Ausgabe K: Kleintiere – Heimtiere (Germany)Tierarztliche Praxis. Supplement (Germany)Tierarztliche Umschau (Germany)Tijdschrift voor Diergeneeskunde (Netherlands)Transboundary and Emerging Diseases (Germany)Turkish Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (Turkey)Veterinaria Mexico (Mexico)Veterinarija ir Zootechnika (Lithuania)Veterinarni Medicina (Czech Republic)Veterinarski Arhiv (Croatia)Veterinary Anaesthesia and Analgesia (UK)Veterinary and Comparative Oncology (UK)Veterinary and Comparative Orthopaedics and Traumatology (Germany)Veterinary Clinical Pathology (US)Veterinary Dermatology (UK)Veterinary Immunology and Immunopathology (Netherlands)Veterinary Journal (UK)Veterinary Microbiology (Netherlands)Veterinary Parasitology (Netherlands)Veterinary Pathology (UK)Veterinary Practitioner (India)Veterinary Radiology and Ultrasound (UK)Veterinary Record (UK)Veterinary Research (France)Veterinary Research Communications (Netherlands)Veterinary Surgery (UK)VlaamsDiergeneeskundigTijdschrift (Belgium)Wiener Tierarztliche Monatsschrift (Austria)ABS: Agricultural and Biological Sciences; ASZ: Animal Science and Zoology; BGM: Biochemistry, Genetics, and Molecular Biology; EQ: Equine; FA: Food animal; GDP: Gross domestic product; GNI: Gross national income; MISC: Miscellaneous; R&D: Research and development; SA: Small animal; UK: United Kingdom; US: United States.The authors declare that they have no competing interests.MMC defined the scope and hypothesis of the study, contributed to study design and data interpretation, acquired and analyzed the data, and drafted the manuscript. AM inspired the study, contributed to study design and data interpretation, and critically revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.


Every good product I’ve ever seen is because a group of people cared deeply about making something wonderful that they and their friends wanted. They wanted to use it themselves’‘Steve Jobsth of December ZooKeys published issue 250, the 76-page monograph “Introduction of the Exocelina ekari-group with descriptions of 22 new species from New Guinea ” by On 13The year 2012 has been important for the journal and the entire zoological community in many aspects. On the 4th of September, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) passed an amendment that considers a publication in a digital scientific journal ‘legitimate’ if meeting archiving criteria and the publication is registered at the ICZN’s official online registry, ZooBank. Pensoft was among the first supporters of the open-access idea, and one of the most active advocates of the e-only publishing of taxonomic data. Taking this into account and as recognition of Pensoft’s active role in promotion of taxonomy, the Commission decided to announce the Amendment of the Code in ZooKeys . This rePageBreakAs a result of a fruitful collaboration, The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) and ZooKeys on February 10th, 2012 announced a new joint project (EOASP) aimed at increasing the flow of new species descriptions from scientists in developing countries into the Encyclopedia of Life and promoting the open access publishing model in taxonomy. Another goal of this initiative was to support and educate the next generation of taxonomists in open science principles and to motivate publishers to modernize their publishing models and workflows to fit the changing needs of scientists and researchers around the world. Up to now, the EOASP project has supported 22 articles, in which 32 species, 7 genera and 1 family were described as new to sciences, and several more taxa were re-described.The EOASP project was preceeded by another joint initiative with EOL called “Fabulous New Species collection” launched in January 2012. Its main aim was to bring together and promulgate the scientifically notable new taxa described every year in ZooKeys and other Pensoft’s journals and simultaneously registered in EOL. A short annotation written in a popular language explains why the new species is interesting in an attempt to draw the attention of the general public and the world mass media to it.In 2012, a new pilot project for establishing the Online Identification Key (OIK) as a new type of scientific article that is a derivative of the Data Paper was put forward by ZooKeys. The publication of an online key in the form of a scholarly article is a pragmatic compromise between the dynamic structure of the internet and the static character of scientific articles. The authors of the keys will be able to continuously update their products, to the benefit of users. At the same time, the users will have available a citation mechanism for the online key, identical to that used for any other scientific article, to properly credit its author(s). The model is illustrated by an exemplar paper describing a new software platform for creating online keys, MOSCHweb . The papThe year 2012 will be remembered also with the ZooKeys special issue “No specimen left behind: mass digitization of natural history collections” initiated by the Natural History Museum in London. The editors Vince Smith and Vladimir Blagoderov brought together 18 papers by 81 authors to look at progress and prospects for mass digitizing of entire natural history collections. The compendium examines recent advances in imaging systems and data gathering techniques, combined with more collaborative approaches to digitization. Examples of research covered by the articles include a description of efforts to digitize 30 million plant, insect and vertebrate specimens at NCB Naturalis in the Netherlands; new scanning and telemicroscopy solutions to digitize the millions of pinned insect specimens held in the Australian National Insect Collection and its European and North American counterparts; and, new data portals providing central access to millions of biological specimens across Europe, etc.PageBreak wasp, and the leggiest animal, as well as a new fanged dinosaur from Africaand new family of cave spiders from the USA. In December 2011, ZooKeys announced the publication of the world’s smallest vertebrates – the New Guinean frogs Paedophryne dekot and Paedophryne verrucosa, which average length rarely exceeds 8–9 mm  that was published in ZooKeys in August 2012  antennae that are used to feel its way through the dark because it lacks eyes. The video associated with the publication enjoyed more than 46,500 views in YouTube within only a month.th of July 2008 until the 10th of December 2012 the number of published articles and monographs has reached 1,245 or 32,416 pages overall. The number of published pages has grown from 11,344 in 2011 to 12,292 in 2012  and will probably be published by the end of 2012 or early 2013. This makes 2,973 new taxa in total.th of December 2012 are listed in Trogloraptoridae by The top 10 most accessed ZooKeys papers through the 10PageBreak most accessed press releases logically find place also in the “top 10” list of most viewed papers on the ZooKeys website.In 2012, ZooKeys continued to popularize the published research through press releases, which in most cases were broadly mirrored by the global science media and increased the visibility of the journal on the global scene. A list of the top 10 most accessed posted through EurekAlert! press releases of ZooKeys articles is given in In conclusion, Pensoft Publishers’ flagship taxonomic journal ZooKeys continues to experience growth in 2012. Furthermore, ZooKeys continues to evolve its editorial workflow, constantly implementing new and improved publishing and dissemination technologies, thus always being on point for digital biodiversity science. This is backed up by the fact that the Impact Factor of ZooKeys has increased from 0.517 to 0.897 in 2011, and is expected to continue growing due to the high quality and great visibility of the published content. We are deeply indebted to all our authors, reviewers, subject editors, and readers, and journalistic followers without whose support ZooKeys would not have become such a successful journal! We also thank Rich Pyle for providing information on the new taxa registered in ZooBank.


Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology (JASB) was founded in June 2010, as the first English language journal published in the field of animal science in China. The journal is supported by the Chinese Association of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, a well-respected and established society. Animal science and animal production have been developing rapidly in China over the past 20 years. China has become the largest meat and egg producer in the world. A group of scientists and researchers have emerged in this fast growing area, producing high-quality research results. JASB was first designed to introduce achievements in animal science and technology from China to the international community. After publishing several articles, we started to receive excellent submissions from international authors, which made us realize that it was time to move to a truly international platform and make the excellent content visible to readers all over the world. The journal provides a premier platform for your work to reach both Chinese and international audiences. In line with BioMed Central (part of Springer Science+Business Media), the leading Open Access publisher worldwide, the journal is now in an excellent position to make important contributions to the development of animal science and technology research.Animal Science Research is a diverse program where research areas intersect to study the genetic, nutritional, metabolic, reproductive and physiological mechanisms during animal growth and development, using biotechnology. Animal agriculture continues to expand worldwide, as demand for animal protein and products increase. Research is also conducted in food science and meat science areas to provide consumers with safe, high quality food products. With the continuous development of molecular biology and molecular biotechnology, the reach of the field has become increasingly broad. With the gradual completion of whole-genome sequencing and improvements in biochip technology, the study of heritable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotypes caused by mechanisms, other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence, also becomes a hot topic. At the same, biotechnology applies to animal nutrition research in order to reveal the metabolic mechanism at the molecular level. Traditional animal science research still plays a huge role to improve the quantity and quality of animal products.Open access is the practice of providing unrestricted access via the Internet to peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles. Open access is increasingly being used to publish journal articles, in addition to theses, scholarly monographs and book chapters . A studyJASB are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers, and, the journal will cover the article-processing charges (APCs) for all authors, so that authors do not need to pay.Since the "birth" of the journal, it has been published under an open access model, allowing all of the publications to be freely accessible online. Springer has been an active player in open access publishing in recent years. Confident in its experience, the journal decided to publish with BioMed Central, the largest open access publisher, and part of Springer. All articles published by JASB aims to publish original manuscripts that encompass a broad range of research topics, including animal production and fundamental aspects of genetics, nutrition, physiology, health, quality of animal products, and livestock farming systems. This mainly concerns research in cattle, goats, horses, pigs, and sheep, however, studies involving other farm animals and laboratory animal species that address fundamental issues related to livestock biology will also be considered for publication.JASB is the product of many people's hard work. JASB has received lots of help from experts and scholars in field of animal science and biotechnology. I would like to thank you for your continuous support, we are fully committed to conducting thorough peer review and strive to keep the high standards of the journal. We also hope to provide our authors, reviewers and readers a better publishing and reading experience with this new platform. Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology welcomes your best work for rapid open access publication!The successful re-launch of


There are times in research when speed really is of the essence in getting results published. For those working in the infectious disease field, there is a particularly pressing need when an outbreak occurs and it becomes paramount to get data communicated both efficiently and promptly.PLOS Currents: Influenza as a publication channel that would meet the need for swift publication of research during that influenza pandemic. PLOS Currents: Influenza allowed the process of peer review and publication to be reduced from months to a matter of days.The 2009 influenza pandemic highlighted the limited options available for scholarly publications to rapidly communicate research findings in a time of crisis. In response to the needs of the community, PLOS launched PLOS Currents: Disasters, where timely publication is also of the essence). We are now using the experience from PLOS Currents: Influenza to benefit other research areas that are also subject to outbreaks and pandemics, and with this in mind, we are re-launching PLOS Currents: Influenza as PLOS Currents: Outbreaks, an expanded section with a broader scope that will consider research in all aspects of infectious disease outbreaks.PLOS Currents: Influenza showed that agile and reactive publication avenues that facilitated the rapid exchange of scientific results and ideas during an emergency period were possible .this article in PLOS Currents: Influenza, that was followed by the publication of a more in-depth analysis in a traditional journal.An example of how we envisage the process of publication of relevant evidence for infectious disease outbreaks is reflected by The scope and format of the submission will allow a swift peer review which aims for publication of sound research within two to three weeks from submission. The peer review process will be focused solely on an assessment of the soundness of the work and on establishing whether or not the piece is suitable for publication; therefore, request for revisions to the submitted piece will be kept to a minimum.As for all PLOS publications, articles published in all PLOS Currents sections are open access under a CC-BY license. However, unlike many other open access publications, PLOS Currents: Outbreaks has no publication charge.We are certain that PLOS Currents: Outbreaks will address a need in scholarly publishing and provide a channel for the publication of breaking research when it is most needed. We look forward to working with researchers in these rapidly moving fields.If you are interested in submitting work to PLOS Currents: Outbreaks, in joining our Board of Reviewers or in supporting this initiative please contact us on currents@plos.org.


ChemistryOpen, it became apparent that this would be a distinctive project and an exciting opportunity.…knowing that numerous European Chemical Societies support the development of ChemistryOpen. We had both previously received similar invitations to join the boards of other open-access journals but declined these offers; however, after reading the letter from Wiley-VCH and knowing that numerous European Chemical Societies support the development of ChemistryOpen, it became apparent that this would be a distinctive project and an exciting opportunity.ChemistryOpen can fill a gap and co-exist alongside traditional scientific journals. Greater access to research outputs will allow academics and commercial companies to benefit directly through increased innovation and shorter development cycles. In addition, several government funding agencies nowadays require open-access publications of the research they have sponsored. Indeed, Wiley–Blackwell recently announced open-access agreements with and the Max Planck Society in Germany, the FWF Austrian Science Fund, and Telethon, one of the largest biomedical non-profit organizations in Italy. Research results paid by public funds should not be locked away in journals only available to subscribers. ChemPubSoc Europe, a group of 16 continental European chemical societies, was concerned with these issues and aware of the fact that, at that time, no chemical society published an open-access journal. With this background, ChemistryOpen—an open-access, international, multidisciplinary chemistry journal—was born, targeted to a broad and general readership, and aiming for the publication of high-level Full Papers and Communications from all areas of chemistry.Discussions concerning open-access publishing are ongoing. However, there are many good reasons why gold-road, open-access journals such as ChemistryOpen contains a Thesis Treasury, which offers the unique possibility to publish PhD thesis summaries, with the full version archived as Supporting Information and available via Wiley Online Library. These summaries are given digital object identifiers (DOIs) to facilitate citation and make the material “discoverable”. The fact is that not all scientific research is published, searchable or available electronically, and the Thesis Treasury aims to address this disparity. Of course, finding the information is now easier, but reading is still required!In addition, ChemistryOpen will soon reach the very high-standards of other general chemistry journals published by Wiley-VCH…We expect ChemistryOpen will soon reach the very high-standards of other general chemistry journals published by Wiley-VCH, such as Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Chem. Eur. J. and Chem. Asian J. With this aim, we have joined ChemistryOpen as Co-chairmen of the Editorial Advisory Board, and we are excited about the possibility to contribute to this remarkable and unique project.We expect ChemistryOpen. We also hope you enjoy this inaugural issue and that you will continue to consult ChemistryOpen as an essential source of current and advanced developments in chemistry. Finally, we thank all of the authors that have contributed to this first issue. We look forward to receiving your manuscript at ChemistryOpen, and assure you that it will benefit from the open access and easy sharing with the whole scientific community.We hope that the accessing of interesting new scientific results is now made easier for researchers with the launch of


International Code of Botanical Nomenclature to allow electronic-only publishing of new taxa. Even before the end of the Congress and formal acceptance of the changes PhytoKeys was able to publish a report on the main outcomes of the Nomenclature Section on electronic publishing  the appearance of electronic publications as amendments or even alternatives to paper publications; (2) Open Access (OA) as a new publishing model; (3) the linkage of electronic registers, indices, and aggregators, which summarize information on biological species through taxonomic names or their persistent identifiers; and (4) Web 2.0 technologies, which permit the semantic markup of, and semantic enhancements to, published biological texts. The appearance of the journal was concomitant with lively discussions on the validity of nomenclatural acts published electronically . At the blishing .pre-publication registration of nomenclatural acts. Although the Nomenclature Section in Melbourne declined a proposal for mandatory pre-publication registration for acts in plants and algae, it approved the mandatory registration of fungal names on and after 1 January 2013  identifiers in all original descriptions of new species (protologues) and hence a workflow for  species .Encyclopedia of Life, the Plazi Treatment Repository, and Wiki (Species-ID) on the day of publication. PhytoKeys also provides an established infrastructure for data publishing in cooperation with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and the Dryad Data Repository.PhytoKeys has also been at the vanguard of “atomized” content, i.e., to separately distribute the taxonomic information included in a paper to relevant on-line aggregators. Thanks to its advanced XML-based editorial workflow, the journal exports taxon treatments to the www.sourceforge.net/projects/taxpub), an extension of the Journal Archiving and Interchange Tag Suite (JATS) maintained by the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), all papers published in PhytoKeys will be archived in PubMedCentral in three versions, as PDF  International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants . Authors are not requested to provide registration numbers, as the whole process of registration is provided by the Editorial Office of the journal in collaboration with IPNI•	Publish each paper in four versions: (1) PDF for effective publication, reference and easy archiving; (2) full-colour, high-resolution print version identical to the effectively published PDF version; (3) HTML for easy reading, browsing and applying semantic enhancements to the text; and (4) XML to provide a machine-readable file for archiving and data mining•	Produce a print version, identical to the PDF, which will be deposited it in six important botanical libraries of the world: Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; Natural History Museum, London; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis; Komarov Botanical Institute, St. Petersburg; Kunming Institute of Botany Heilongtan, Kunming, China.•	Shorten the publication time to a maximum of one to two weeks after the editorial acceptance of a manuscript•	Continuously develop and implement cutting-edge publishing technologies: XML-based editorial work flow and mark up process, data publication and various semantic Web 2.0 enhancements.Plazi, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), the National Library of Medicine of the U.S. (NLM), and the ViBRANT EU FP7 project. We also PageBreakthank the staff of IPNI for helping us to establish a workflow for the provision of IPNI identifiers for new species of flowering plants.Finally, we would like to thank all of the authors, editors and readers of PhytoKeys for their support of the journal, as well as the translators of the paper of


Biol. Open 2013, 2:686–694.In this paper, GPCRs were screened for their ability to target to primary cilia. VPAC2 wasreported as a novel ciliary targeting GPCR. Furthermore, the ciliary targeting signal of VPAC2 wasidentified and its ciliary targeting mechanisms were studied.Biology Open paper. The authors contacted the BiologyOpen Editorial Office when they were unable to repeat the results. Investigations furtherrevealed that the first author “manipulated and fabricated data”, and they were unableto repeat the finding that VPAC2-GFP targets to cilia. Thus, the authors regret that they mustretract their paper.A departmental investigation into a previously published paper in a different journal resulted ina retraction stating that the first author, Livana Soetedjo, “had manipulated some of thefigures”. The investigative committee recommended that the authors re-examine and re-testaspects of their They apologize to the editors, reviewers and the scientific community for any loss of time orresources caused by this publication.The journal was unable to make contact with the first author.Hua Jin and De'Vona A. Glover


Some of these include plagiarism, salami slicing, ghost authorship, falsification of data, fabrication of data and at times duplicate submissions etc. The revolution in information technology and tremendous developments which has taken place in the scientific publishing has though eased the job of editors of biomedical journals but it has not reduced their problems which in fact have further multiplied. The authors are so impatient that some of them want their manuscripts to be processed and published in the shortest possible time. Given below are some of the e mails which were received during the last few months from the authors which show their urgency:1. I have been offered Residency in United States. I have got the Visa and also booked my seat but I urgently need one published paper in an Impact Factor journal. If you help me, I will be prepared to pay the Fee, as money is not a problem.2. I have to defend my Ph.D Thesis and before the exam, I need one published paper in Impact Factor Journal. Willing to pay the desired fee if the paper is published in the next issue.3. When is your next issue of the journal due as I wish to submit a paper for publication?4. I have many research papers. I can submit five to six papers every month and if you enter into an agreement to publish two of my papers in every issue, we can negotiate the publication charges but would expect some discount keeping in view the large number of papers.5. I forgot to get Ethics Committee approval but I need this paper to be published quickly to be considered for promotion by the university. Need your help and a sympathetic consideration.6. I am submitting a research paper and it does not need any peer review as Prof…….. has already seen it and approved its publication. Please include it in the issue under printing and let me know the publication charges so that I can arrange it immediately.7. My university accepts only those papers for academic credit which are published in journals covered by ISC, Web of Sciences with Impact Factor. I have three papers. If you can publish them in the previous issues and include them in the online edition, I can claim the credit. Publication charges no problem. Need your help.8. We have some problems with the institutional ethics committee because of professional jealousy and ------- politics. Can you help us accept our papers without Ethics Committee approval? We assure you there won’t be any scientific misconduct in our studies. 9. In the paper published in your current issue, the research was done by me but my supervisor sent you the manuscript putting his name at No. 1 in the authors list. Kindly do justice to me and put my name as No. 1 and if possible remove the name of my supervisor, as I am no more working there.10. I made a mistake of submitting my research study to your very low quality journal. By rejecting my paper, you have proved that authors must know and have friendship with the editors if they wish to get their manuscripts published.-5 Talking about the problems faced with the authors, Dr. Ahmad Baddar a distinguished medical editor who edited Journal of Ayub Medical College for many years, once informed me that he does not talk to the authors. He just communicates with them through e mail. At first I thought it was a bit rude attitude but over the years I have realized that it is the more sensible approach because it is not easy to make the authors understand the problems the editors have to face. This also reminds me of the keynote speech delivered by Mr. Tim Albert an eminent medical journalist from UK who while making a presentation as guest speaker at the EMMJ4 Medical Journals Conference organized by Eastern Mediterranean Associaton of Medical Editors (EMAME) at Bahrain in 2008 had remarked that “authors are the most dangerous pressure groups the editors have to face”.6This is not all. If you look at the other e mails with uncharitable remarks and comments from those authors whose manuscripts are rejected, their comments for the Reviewers, one feels very sad. Instead of learning and improving their manuscripts benefitting from the reviewers comments and suggestions, they indulge in un-necessary correspondence and uncalled for allegaitons. In fact editing a quality peer reviewed medical journal with financial and human resource constraints is a very frustrating and stressful job and the editors have to face numerous problems and different pressure groups. 3However, there is another category of authors who are keen learners. They utilize the opportunity provided by the editorial team and reviewers comments to improve the quality of their manuscripts. These are the one who become much wiser and later also serve as Reviewers on being picked up by the Editors. Some of them are even honoured by inviting them to join the Editorial Board of various journals.7 Though gift authorship is quite common but keeping in view the sensitive nature, it is difficult to find out its true prevalence.Gift authorship is one of the scientific misconduct which is highly prevalent every where and Pakistan is no exception. Gift authorship is mostly offered to the seniors, head of the department or institutions, to friends on reciprocal basis. At times this is not a gift but it is “authorship for sale”. Once the manuscript has been accepted for publication, the authors take money from others who wish to have some published papers and then ask the editors to make changes in the authors, add some authors and delete some. Over the years misconduct has crept into research in different forms. A recent study from India reports that out of 192 filled questionnaires from nine centers, 27 were excluded from final analysis. Hence out of the total remaining 155 Reponses in 86, (85.1%) instances the person offered gift authorship was a senior. Fifty one (32.9%) knew of their colleagues who had sliced up their studies to created multiple papers from the single study. 89These are some of unethical practices which the editors have to check with courage and determination. The Editors are supposed not to betray their readers and tell the truth, promote scientific, evidence based medicine and check publication of un-authenticated, wrong or doctored information. Even the recently revised guidelines on authorship by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) has proposed the four criteria to which all authors are now accountable. Based on the personal experience one can offer some suggestions to the editor colleagues to follow and protect their as well their journal’s integrity and credibility:Be careful of too many submissions from the same e mail. Some agency can be at work.Do not entertain submissions from professional business, commercial groups; instead always communicate directly with the authors.Do not process any manuscript unless it is accompanied by Ethics Committee/Institutional Review Board (EC/IRB) approval. Even if ethics committee approval is not needed, let the authors provide an exemption letter issued by the EC/IRB.Check the menace of Gift authorship as far as possible. Refuse to change, add or delete authors from the list of original submission or those which are mentioned on the letter of undertaking at the time of submission. However, if the authors insist ask them to get it approved first from their institution and then from the Ethics Committee/Institutional Review Board which had approved the study protocol.Have a good Peer Review system in place. Even if the manuscript has been reviewed by the reviewers suggested by the authors, there is no harm in it but carefully Review their Reviews and if need be seek help and assistance of other reviewers.In case you suspect gift authorship and the authors insist on retaining all the listed authors, you can always politely refuse to process such manuscripts and ask the authors to submit it to some other journal.Maintain complete record of correspondence with authors, peer review for at least two years.Always screen all the manuscripts for plagiarism before processing them further.Local reviewers are best at detecting salami publications.Finally the editors should not expect to find a solution to all these problems in the very near future. However, the solution lies in improving the knowledge of medical professionals regarding publication ethics besides strengthening the mechanism to identify and weed out scientific misconduct. We have to cover a lot more distance in this academic journey in the field of scientific publishing.


Immunity, Inflammation and Disease is a peer-reviewed, open access, interdisciplinary journal providing rapid publication of cutting-edge research across the broad fi eld of immunology. Immunity, Inflammation and Disease gives rapid consideration to papers in all areas of clinical and basic research. The journal welcomes original work that enhances the understanding of immunology in areas including cellular and molecular immunology, clinical immunology, allergy, immunochemistry, immunogenetics, cancer immunology, and many others.Immunity, Inflammation and Disease considers for publication both papers submitted directly to the journal and those referred from a select group of prestigious journals published by Wiley Blackwell. For further information, please refer to our Author Guidelines available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)2050-4527/homepage/ForAuthors.htmlOriginal research articles, methods papers, editorials and commentaries are published. Original research papers must report well-conducted research with conclusions supported by the data presented in the paper. Immunity, Inflammation and Disease 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, please visit the Wiley Open Access website at http://www.wileyopenaccess.com/view/index.htmlImmunity, Inflammation and Disease are fully open access: immediately freely available to read, download and share. 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 Immunity, Inflammation and Disease is retained by the author(s). Authors grant Wiley a licence 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 in this website: http://www.wileyopenaccess.com/details/content/12f25db4c87/Copyright--License.htmlCopyright on any research article in a journal published by 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, fi tness 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.Dr. Marc VeldhoenBabraham Institute, UKIIDeditorial@wiley.comAddress correspondence to the Editorial Office: Email: Omid AkbariUniversity of Southern California, USAMark ColesUniversity of York, UKAnselm EndersThe Australian National University, AustraliaJochen HuehnHelmholz Centre for Infection Research, GermanyStéphanie HuguesUniversity of Geneva, SwitzerlandIgor JurakHarvard University, USA and University of Rijeka, CroatiaLudger KleinLudwig Maximilian University of Munich, GermanyJun KunisawaNational Institute of Biomedical Innovation, JapanArian LaurenceBethesda, MD, USAKathy McCoyUniversity of Bern, SwitzerlandOsamu TakeuchiKyoto University, JapanHai QiTsinghua University, ChinaTim RadstakeUniversity Medical Center Utrecht, NetherlandsBruno Silva-SantosUniversity of Lisbon, PortugalMark TravisUniversity of Manchester, UKDavid WithersUniversity of Birmingham, UK


Dear Reader,Sports Medicine - Open, the editors and production staff at SpringerOpen wish to reflect on a successful year’s achievements and pay thanks to all those who have contributed their time and effort to establish this new journal.As we approach the end of 2015 and the completion of the first ever volume of Sports Medicine - Open will close with more than 20 original research articles, a dozen review articles (including systematic reviews), one particularly well-downloaded current opinion piece, and two editorials. And while we must offer our sincere thanks to all the authors who have contributed thus far, the quality of published articles is, similarly, testament to the significant efforts of the peer reviewers, whose commitment ensures that our content is held to the highest possible standard.We have been delighted by the way the sports science community has embraced the new journal and grateful for the number of high-quality submissions that the journal has received. The inaugural volume of Sports Medicine - Open, since the journal began receiving submissions in mid-2014:In addition to the members of our Honorary Editorial Board, we would like to thank the following individuals who have acted as reviewers for Roger Adams, AustraliaMaicon R. Albuquerque, BrazilRoy D. Altman, USAIsabel Andia, SpainSophie Attwood, UKFilippo Aucella, ItalyAstrid Balemans, the NetherlandsKristoffer Barfod, DenmarkMichelle Barrack, USAParveen Bawa, CanadaDaniel A. Boullosa, BrazilChristian Brinkmann, GermanyDiego Brunelli, BrazilRobert Buresh, USARobin Callister, AustraliaHelmi Chaabène, TunisiaKarim Chamari, QatarJean-Claude Chatard, FranceKong Y. Chen, USAHsiu-Ching Chiu, TaiwanDemetra D. Christou, USAHamdi Chtourou, TunisiaImogen Nicola Clark, AustraliaMike Climstein, AustraliaBrian J. Cole, USAMark Connick, AustraliaRicardo Costa, AustraliaAntonio Crisafulli, ItalyNicole C. Dabbs, USAAbdolhamid Daneshjoo, IranJ. Derek Kingsley, USABeat Knechtle, SwitzerlandKarsten Koehler, USAJan Konarski, PolandNikolaos E. Koyndoyrakis, GreeceMichael Lamont, New ZealandEmilio Landolfi, CanadaRobert Lansing, USASteen Larsen, DenmarkDavid Lavallee, UKHeather Leach, CanadaJill Leckey, AustraliaRoss K. Leighton, CanadaShannon Lennon-Edwards, USAXinning Li, USAHarry Lim, SingaporeAdriano E. Lima da Silva, BrazilAlexis Lion, LuxembourgGrant S. Lipman, USAFabio Lira, BrazilJeremy P. Loenneke, USAAlfredo M. Lurati, ItalyTheresa Mann, South AfricaFrank Marino, AustraliaMyosotis Massidda, ItalyJames P. McClung, USAJane McDevitt, USAMike McGuigan, New ZealandAntti Mero, FinlandKevin Miller, USAChris Mills, UKBartosz Molik, PolandNicholas Murray, USAKathy Myburgh, South AfricaAra Nazarian, USAMathieu Nédélec, FranceJeanne F. Nichols, USASean Davies, USAPhilip Davis, UKBenedito S. Denadai, BrazilStefano D'Ottavio, ItalyWong Jyh Eiin, MalaysiaJennifer Etnier, USANir Eynon, AustraliaIrene Faber, the NetherlandsÉanna Falvey, IrelandRômulo Fernandes, BrazilJared Fletcher, CanadaMaria Francesca, QatarTim Gabbett, AustraliaJarred Gillett, AustraliaPaul Glazier, UKUrs Granacher, GermanyTyson Grier, USAJordan Guenette, CanadaEsther Hartman, the NetherlandsKeith G. Hauret, USAJaime Hinzpeter, ChileMartin D. Hoffman, USAChun-Jung Huang, USAJasmin Hutchinson, USAXanne Janssen, UKYong-Seok Jee, Republic of KoreaUffe Jørgensen, DenmarkJeremy D. Joslin, USALiz Joy, USAJyrki Kettunen, FinlandDavid Nieman, USAOnni Niemelä, FinlandVincent Nougier, FranceMichał Nowicki, PolandAri Nummela, FinlandMichael P. Nyberg, DenmarkRob M. Orr, AustraliaDebbie Palmer-Green, UKAndy Pasternak, USACharles Pedlar, UKJesper Petersen, DenmarkMaria Francesca Piacentini, ItalyPaul Pillitteri, USAFlávio Pires, BrazilClaudia L. Reardon, USAE. Justy Reed, USAChris Rhea, USAWilliam O. Roberts, USAAlejandro Santos-Lozano, SpainDean K. Simonton, USASabrina Skorski, GermanyAndrew Springer, USACathy Starr, USALaura Stewart, USAThomas Swensen, USAJohn Temesi, CanadaMasaru Teramoto, USARobert Thiebaud, USAKevin Till, UKArgyris Toubekis, GreeceTinna Traustadóttir, USAEdith Van Dyck, BelgiumGeert Verheyden, BelgiumMegan Wenner, USANancy Williams, USAJinliang Xing, ChinaJames Zois, AustraliaWe hope that you have found the articles published this year to be both interesting and informative, and we look forward to keeping you up to date with more sport and exercise science research in 2016.Sports Medicine - Open and everyone at SpringerOpen.With best wishes from the staff of


The protocol is established specifically to address the data gap that exists in responding to the current Zika virus epidemic, and will apply in the first instance only to articles submitted in the context of this outbreak.To improve timely access to data in the context of a public health emergency, the Bulletin, all research manuscripts relevant to the Zika epidemic will be assigned a digital object identifier and posted online in the “Zika Open” collection within 24 hours while undergoing peer review. The data in these papers will thus be attributed to the authors while being freely available for reader scrutiny and unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited as indicated by the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organizations license (CC BY IGO 3.0)Bulletin following peer review, this open access review period will be reported in the final publication. In the event that a paper does not survive peer review, and given the rapidly evolving knowledge basis on this disease, authors will be free to seek publication elsewhere. If the authors of any paper posted with the Bulletin in this context are unable to obtain acceptance with a suitable journal, WHO undertakes to publish these papers in its institutional repository as citable working papers, independently of the Bulletin. This early access to research manuscripts at WHO builds on examples of other rapid information access platforms such as PROMED and F1000Research.,On submission to the Given the number and complexity of unanswered questions on the mechanisms and consequences of Zika infection and associated disease, our goal is to encourage all researchers to share their data as quickly and widely as possible. With this protocol for immediate online posting, we are providing another means to achieve immediate global access to relevant data. Researchers can thus share their data while meeting their need to retain authorship, achieve precedence, and to put their research on public record. We are pleased to announce that the first paper to which this protocol applies is now available online.


Biological Research’s celebrates its 50th year in 2014. The Chilean Biology Society and I are delighted to mark this milestone by entering a new era in which the journal is published by BioMed Central. The journal has a long history publishing research across the broad spectrum of experimental biology, having been founded in 1964 as “Archivos de Biología y Medicina Experimentales” and renamed in 1992 to its current title.Biological Research will have greater visibility, which will attract new authors from around the world to publish in the journal and gather new readers. The resultant increase in downloads and impact should lead to a rise in citations and growth of the Impact Factor, currently 1.13. The journal is indexed in PubMed and Scopus, and published articles are archived in PubMed Central, SciELO and other accessible full text repositories. This shows that the journal is one of the scientific publications of Latin American-origin with greatest international impact.We are certain that, by being associated with this prestigious publishing house, We welcome original articles and invited reviews in diverse fields of experimental biology, including biochemistry, bioinformatics, biotechnology, cell biology, cancer, chemical biology, developmental biology, evolutionary biology, genetics, genomics, immunology, marine biology, microbiology, molecular biology, neurosciences, plant biology, physiology, stem cells, structural biology and systems biology.ad hoc referees. The reviewers, experts in the area to which the manuscript pertains, will critically analyse the manuscript in a timely manner. Acceptance for publication is based on the scientific content, originality and presentation of the material. Accepted manuscripts will be published electronically within a few weeks of their final approval date.In an attempt to continually improve the impact and competitiveness of this journal, manuscripts will receive immediate attention upon arrival. Submitted manuscripts will be handled by an Associate Editor and evaluated by at least two independent reviewers, who are either members of the Editorial Board or Biological Research, dedicated to a specific area. In the recent past we published two special issues focused on ‘Stem Cell Research’ (Biol Res 45(3), 2012) [We will continue to publish some special issues in Biological Research, published by BioMed Central as open access manuscripts, we include a variety of papers covering different areas of experimental biology. They include manuscripts on biomedicine  [Among the first articles in volume 47 of Brazil) ; geneticBrazil) ; moleculBrazil) ; plant bBrazil) .http://www.twitter.com/Bio_Research) and Facebook  to aid the dissemination of the scope and content of Biological Research, as well as the Chilean Biology Society newsletter. Now the journal is published by BioMed Central, we welcome comments directly on an article, to which an author may wish to reply. Article metrics will be provided for all articles to help readers assess the overall importance and impact of an article in terms of citations, downloads, and the discussion and debate about the article taking place on the web.Technological advances support both editing and raising the visibility of journals. We already use Twitter (Biological Research and its contents, and facilitate access to the journal for international researchers, thus increasing the number of articles submitted for review. We welcome your submissions as we enter this new phase in the journal’s history.We expect that this new alliance between the Chilean Biology Society and BioMed Central will strengthen the international competitiveness of Manuel J. Santos, MD, PhD,Biological ResearchEditor of


It is that time of the year again to provide our readers with a progress report on the journal's health and well-being, and to provide a “sneak preview” of the coming months.The journal's editorial staff underwent some changes during 2014. Kue Young continues as editor-in-chief, with 3 deputy editors: Marit Jørgensen (Denmark), Rhonda Johnson (United States) and Anders Koch (Denmark). The chief and deputy editors oversee the management of manuscripts. They were ably assisted by 3 associate editors: Juhani Leppäluoto (Finland), Jon Øyvind Odland (Norway) and Pamela Orr (Canada), who have committed to reviewing manuscripts that are in their areas of expertise.Between January and December 2014, 76 new manuscripts were submitted to the journal website, an average of about 1 new submission every 5 days. The total for 2014 was an increase over 2013, when 60 manuscripts were submitted.The acceptance rate continues to fall, and has fallen below 50% among the “cohort” of manuscripts submitted up to December 31, 2014, compared to 60% among manuscripts submitted in 2013, and much higher in earlier years.published in 2014 , the time elapsed from receipt to acceptance was 71 days, and the average time from receipt to publication was 105 days. It can be seen that we have made improvement in reducing the time a manuscript spends in the review and production processes. Here I want to make a plea to our authors and readers. In order for the waiting time to be further shortened, we need reviewers! The task of finding willing reviewers is getting more difficult. When asked, many potential reviewers claim lack of time, while some do not even bother to respond.Authors are justifiably concerned about the time they have to wait before they see their scientific (and literary) labours bear fruit. For the 29 papers What are we planning for the journal in 2015? We welcome submissions in all the categories of manuscripts. We shall start a new category, called Theory and Methods, to cater to articles that deal with theoretical issues in research or policy to stimulate discussion. We also welcome articles that describe their theoretical framework and provide details of the design of complex studies, as generally articles reporting results of original research tend not to have sufficient space for such information.We shall have a special issue on suicide in circumpolar regions, especially among Indigenous youths. The journal published such a special issue in 2009. Alas, there is little sign that the magnitude of this serious health problem has diminished.We thank all our readers, authors and reviewers, without whose support, this journal will be an empty space. The editorial and production staff at Co-Action Publishing continues to demonstrate their high degree of professionalism. Last but not least, the website has undergone a major facelift, and now there is a fresh new look consistent across all journals published by Co-Action Publishing.Kue YoungEditor-in-ChiefEmail: kue.young@utoronto.ca


Extreme Physiology & Medicine was launched as a high quality peer-reviewed open access journal focussing on integrative human physiology under conditions of physiological stress. Our third birthday seems an opportune moment to look back down the valley of our early days whilst looking forwards and upwards to peaks beyond.It is 3 years since pathophysiology. This notion is gaining traction, in part given the increasing recognition that animal models of complex (patho)physiology may poorly represent that in humans [combinations of physiological stressors may offer even greater insights than single stressors alone [In our welcoming editorial  we descrn humans . For exan humans . Our conrs alone .Extreme Physiology & Medicine, we felt that few journals served the field of ‘extreme’ or ‘boundary’ physiology. This remains as true today as it was then. To ensure that Extreme Physiology & Medicine publishes relevant articles of the highest quality, our ambition was that submitted manuscripts would be handled by world leaders in their fields. In this regard, we are proud to have assembled a truly expert international board of editors who are at the cutting edge of their respective disciplines. It appears that we were correct in our estimation of unmet need: despite a rigorous reviewing process, we have published more than 80 articles in 3 years.When we launched As well as publishing reports of scientific investigation, we also wished to create a journal which was ‘stimulating’ both to those with a passion for human integrative physiology and for a more general readership. We encourage submission of review articles relating to topics rarely covered elsewhere—such as the recent discussion of insights from metabolomics into the mitochondrial response to extreme environments, by O’Brien and colleagues . NeitherExtreme Physiology & Medicine is an ‘Open Access’ journal: all content is readily accessible to all, free of charge, worldwide through the journal website (http://www.extremephysiolmed.com) and via SpringerLink  as well as from a variety of digital archives . This approach is unique amongst specialist journals in this area, and improves both an article’s speed of dissemination and the scale of its “reach”, and therefore the likelihood that it will have impact and be cited. Such metrics are increasingly important to academia, and the value of such an approach for Extreme Physiology & Medicine is evident: >362,000 article accesses. All articles in Extreme Physiology & Medicine are indexed in PubMed and PubMed Central, as well as Scopus and Google Scholar, and the journal is included in the Directory of Open Access Journals.http://www.biomedcentral.com/authors/oawaiverfund/) receive a full waiver, those whose parent institution is a member of the BioMed family pay no APCs directly, and those from BioMed supporter member institutions are eligible for a partial waiver or discount . Increasingly, grant giving bodies and academic institutions demand open access publication and will meet the costs of publication.Of course, the free-to-view, and reuse with proper citation, Open Access model shifts the cost of publication from the consumer to the producer, and thus attracts an article processing charge (£1370/$2145/€1745 per article in 2015). However, authors from the low-income countries (see Overall, then, how does our report card read? Hopefully ‘Good effort’ and ‘A fine start’ are reasonable. But ‘What could we do better’ is always on our minds. Please share with us your views and hopes for the journal along with any suggestions for improvements. We are confident that, with your support, the journal will continue to thrive and grow over the coming years. We look forward to receiving your article submissions and hope that you enjoy the unique contribution that we believe the journal makes to a rapidly developing and exciting field.


Journal of Pharmaceutical Health Care and Sciences (JPHCS) [JPHCS is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal that publishes research in all aspects of clinical pharmacy as well as clinical and experimental pharmacotherapy. The aim of the journal is to offer an open access forum for the publication of scientifically rigorous articles focusing on all fields of pharmaceutical health care and sciences.We are proud to announce the launch of a new journal,  (JPHCS) . JPHCS iJPHCS is the official journal of the Japanese Society of Pharmaceutical Health Care and Sciences (JSPHCS), which is founded in 1990. It aims to strengthen the foundation of Pharmaceutical Sciences through the exchange of knowledge between society members and relative societies for the benefit of public health and professional education. As of October 2014, the JSPHCS has over ten thousand members, including pharmacists, pharmaceutical researchers, and pharmaceutical company staff.JPHCS has the potential to reach a much larger set of readers than any subscription-based journals. In addition, articles will be published as soon as they are accepted, and will be archived in PubMed Central [JPHCS will help to fulfill the aim of the Society and to promote the exchange of ideas internationally in this and related fields.A new English journal in pharmaceutical health care and sciences is needed because there is a lack of journals in this area, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. More importantly, there are few open access journals in this field worldwide. As an open access journal , all art Central  and otheJPHCS will publish articles relevant to clinical pharmacy as well as clinical and experimental pharmacotherapy including outcome research on pharmacotherapy and pharmaceutical health care, rational and appropriate pharmacotherapy in relation to clinical and/or experimental indices, pharmacoepidemiology, pharmacoeconomics, drug informatics, pharmacy services research, medication management, and other aspects of pharmaceutical health care and sciences. JPHCS welcomes papers in the following categories: Reviews (by invitation only), Research articles, Case reports and Short reports. Each article type published by JPHCS follows a specific format, as detailed in the corresponding instructions for authors [ authors .JPHCS will be reviewed independently by at least two experts in the field. We are interested in publishing articles of the highest quality and novelty. We believe that JPHCS will become an important journal by providing opportunities for communication among the scientists of this field in the world, and we are looking forward to receiving your submissions.Manuscripts submitted to