Using Preprints for Journal Clubs

N.G. thanks Sophien Kamoum for discussions on this topic, which helped shape his views.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

EVEREST IST - 2002 - 00185 : D23 : final report

Deliverable públic del projecte europeu EVERESTThis deliverable constitutes the final report of the project IST-2002-001858 EVEREST. After its successful completion, the project presents this document that firstly summarizes the context, goal and the approach objective of the project. Then it presents a concise summary of the major goals and results, as well as highlights the most valuable lessons derived form the project work. A list of deliverables and publications is included in the annex.Postprint (published version

Bioterrorism: Lessons Learned Since the Anthrax Mailings

In the fall of 2001, Bacillus anthracis spores were spread through letters mailed in the United States. Twenty-two people are known to have been infected, and five of these individuals died. Together with the  September 11 attacks, this resulted in a reevaluation of the risks and benefits of life science research with the potential for misuse. In this editorial, we review some of the results of these discussions and their implications for the future

The first three years of the Journal of Global Health:Assessing the impact

The Journal of Global Health (JoGH) is three years old. To assess its impact, we analysed online access to JoGH’s articles using PubMed Central and Google Analytics tools. Moreover, we tracked citations that JoGH received in 2013 using ISI Web of KnowledgeSM and Google Scholar® tools. The 66 items (articles, viewpoints and editorials) published between June 2011 and December 2013 were accessed more than 50 000 times during 2013, from more than 160 countries of the world. Seven among the 13 most accessed papers were focused on global, regional and national epidemiological estimates of important infectious diseases. JoGH articles published in 2011 and 2012 received 77 citations in Journal Citation Reports® (JCR)–indexed journals in 2013 to 24 original research articles, setting our first, unofficial impact factor at 3.208. In addition, JoGH received 11 citations during 2013 to its 12 original research papers published during 2013, resulting in an immediacy index of 0.917. The number of external, non–commissioned submissions that we consider to be of high quality is continuously increasing, leading to current JoGH’s rejection rate of about 80%. The current citation analysis raises favourable expectations for the JoGH’s overall impact on the global health community in future years

Performance of adaptive bayesian equalizers in outdoor environments

Outdoor communications are affected by multipath propagation that imposes an upper limit on the system data rate and restricts possible applications. In order to overcome the degrading effect introduced by the channel, conventional equalizers implemented with digital filters have been traditionally used. A new approach based on neural networks is considered. In particular, the behavior of the adaptive Bayesian equalizer implemented by means of radial basis functions applied to the channel equalization of radio outdoor environments has been analyzed. The method used to train the equalizer coefficients is based on a channel response estimation. We compare the results obtained with three channel estimation methods: the least sum of square errors (LSSE) channel estimation algorithm, recursive least square (RLS) algorithm employed only to obtain one channel estimation and, finally, the RLS algorithm used to estimate the channel every decided symbol for the whole frame.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Antibody-based therapies for emerging infectious diseases.

In the 19th century, it was discovered that immune sera were useful in treating infectious diseases. Serum therapy was largely abandoned in the 1940s because of the toxicity associated with the administration of heterologous sera and the introduction of effective antimicrobial chemotherapy. Recent advances in the technology of monoclonal antibody production provide the means to generate human antibody reagents and reintroduce antibody therapies, while avoiding the toxicities associated with serum therapy. Because of the versatility of antibodies, antibody-based therapies could, in theory, be developed against any existing pathogen. The advantages of antibody-based therapies include versatility, low toxicity, pathogen specificity, enhancement of immune function, and favorable pharmacokinetics; the disadvantages include high cost, limited usefulness against mixed infections, and the need for early and precise microbiologic diagnosis. The potential of antibodies as antiinfective agents has not been fully tapped. Antibody-based therapies constitute a potentially useful option against newly emergent pathogens