Ten Hot Topics around Scholarly Publishing

The changing world of scholarly communication and the emergence of a new wave of 'Open Science' or 'Open Research' has brought to light a number of controversial and hotly-debated topics. Yet, evidence-based rational debate is regularly drowned out by misinformed or exaggerated rhetoric, which does not benefit the evolving system of scholarly communication. The aim of this article is to provide a baseline evidence framework for ten of the most contested topics, in order to help frame and move forward discussions, practices and policies. We address issues around preprints and scooping, the practice of copyright transfer, the function of peer review, predatory publishers, and the legitimacy of 'global' databases. The presented facts, arguments and data will be a powerful tool against misinformation across wider academic research, policy and practice, and may be used to inform changes within the rapidly evolving scholarly publishing system

Falls Predict Acute Hospitalization in Parkinson's Disease

[Background] There is a need for identifying risk factors for hospitalization in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and also interventions to reduce acute hospital admission.[Objective] To analyze the frequency, causes, and predictors of acute hospitalization (AH) in PD patients from a Spanish cohort.[Methods] PD patients recruited from 35 centers of Spain from the COPPADIS-2015 (COhort of Patients with PArkinson’s DIsease in Spain, 2015) cohort from January 2016 to November 2017, were included in the study. In order to identify predictors of AH, Kaplan-Meier estimates of factors considered as potential predictors were obtained and Cox regression performed on time to hospital encounter 1-year after the baseline visit.[Results] Thirty-five out of 605 (5.8%) PD patients (62.5±8.9 years old; 59.8% males) presented an AH during the 1-year follow-up after the baseline visit. Traumatic falls represented the most frequent cause of admission, being 23.7% of all acute hospitalizations. To suffer from motor fluctuations (HR [hazard ratio] 2.461; 95% CI, 1.065–5.678; p = 0.035), a very severe non-motor symptoms burden (HR [hazard ratio] 2.828; 95% CI, 1.319–6.063; p = 0.008), falls (HR 3.966; 95% CI 1.757–8.470; p = 0.001), and dysphagia (HR 2.356; 95% CI 1.124–4.941; p = 0.023) was associated with AH after adjustment to age, gender, disease duration, levodopa equivalent daily dose, total number of non-antiparkinsonian drugs, and UPDRS-IIIOFF. Of the previous variables, only falls (HR 2.998; 95% CI 1.080–8.322; p = 0.035) was an independent predictor of AH.[Conclusion] Falls is an independent predictor of AH in PD patients.Peer reviewe

The Seventeenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys: Complete Release of MaNGA, MaStar and APOGEE-2 Data

This paper documents the seventeenth data release (DR17) from the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys; the fifth and final release from the fourth phase (SDSS-IV). DR17 contains the complete release of the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey, which reached its goal of surveying over 10,000 nearby galaxies. The complete release of the MaNGA Stellar Library (MaStar) accompanies this data, providing observations of almost 30,000 stars through the MaNGA instrument during bright time. DR17 also contains the complete release of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) survey which publicly releases infra-red spectra of over 650,000 stars. The main sample from the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS), as well as the sub-survey Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS) data were fully released in DR16. New single-fiber optical spectroscopy released in DR17 is from the SPectroscipic IDentification of ERosita Survey (SPIDERS) sub-survey and the eBOSS-RM program. Along with the primary data sets, DR17 includes 25 new or updated Value Added Catalogs (VACs). This paper concludes the release of SDSS-IV survey data. SDSS continues into its fifth phase with observations already underway for the Milky Way Mapper (MWM), Local Volume Mapper (LVM) and Black Hole Mapper (BHM) surveys

¿Qué es la Ciencia Abierta y por qué es importante en Chile hoy?

This is the presentation I used for a class in the "Conocimiento y Ciencia Abierta".</p

¿Es Open Access el fin del camino? Reflexiones alrededor de la economía y la política de la producción académica

Based on a literature review, reflections around the impacts of open access on the economy and politics of knowledge production are presente

(Gold) Open Access en la Academia: ¿De qué tipo de acceso hablamos?

Esta presentación se realizó en el marco del panel "Ciencia Abierta dentro y fuera de la academia" en el encuentro TECNOx 3.0 Tecnologías libres para América Latina.<div><br></div><div>Se produjo una interesante discusión en un panel (de mujeres) debido a que todas sus integrantes tenían un rol diverso en la comunicación de la ciencia. Personalmente, mi presentación se enfocó en las consecuencias de la economía del open access en la academia. </div

Descontextualizando Open Access: Una Mirada desde Open Science

Presentación para la reunión anual del Foro de Editores Científicos de Chile 11 Julio 2017<div><br></div><div>Presentation for the anual meeting of the Chilean Scientific Editors Forum. 07/11/2017 <br></div

Spatial Reference Patterns as a Point of Hegemonic Struggle: A Case Study of Biotechnology Journals in Latin America

International audienceAnglophone hegemony in knowledge production processes has been long acknowledged. Academic capitalism (Slaughter and Leslie, 2004) and its neoliberal rationalities, the dominant narratives within the colonial ventures, and a dominant and unreflective use of English in the production of textual knowledge have produced uneven structures in the academic publishing space, a homogenization of the concept of ‘international’ (Paasi 2005, 2015; Tietze and Dick, 2013; Péloquin, 2017). The contribution of the present research to this debate is the identification of points of hegemonic disruption in Latin America. We performed a case study on six articles written in Spanish and Portuguese of two Latin American Biotechnology journals with the purpose of identifying their spatial reference pattern. Findings show a high use of references in Spanish and Portuguese (54,31% and 36.49%, respectively. We interpret complex linguistic referencing patterns - this is citing in languages other than English - as an environment that opens meanings and enriches discussion. Moreover, we conceive Latin America as a space of hegemonic struggle against English homogenization in Science, and the SciELO platform as the infrastructure with the potential to (hopefully) transform the current academic status quo