Meta-Research: Large-scale language analysis of peer review reports

Peer review is often criticized for being flawed, subjective and biased, but research into peer review has been hindered by a lack of access to peer review reports. Here we report the results of a study in which text-analysis software was used to determine the linguistic characteristics of 472,449 peer review reports. A range of characteristics (including analytical tone, authenticity, clout, three measures of sentiment, and morality) were studied as a function of reviewer recommendation, area of research, type of peer review and reviewer gender. We found that reviewer recommendation had the biggest impact on the linguistic characteristics of reports, and that area of research, type of peer review and reviewer gender had little or no impact. The lack of influence of research area, type of review or reviewer gender on the linguistic characteristics is a sign of the robustness of peer review

The peer review game: an agent-based model of scientists facing resource constraints and institutional pressures

This paper looks at peer review as a cooperation dilemma through a game-theory framework. We built an agent-based model to estimate how much the quality of peer review is influenced by different resource allocation strategies followed by scientists dealing with multiple tasks, i.e., publishing and reviewing. We assumed that scientists were sensitive to acceptance or rejection of their manuscripts and the fairness of peer review to which they were exposed before reviewing. We also assumed that they could be realistic or excessively over-confident about the quality of their manuscripts when reviewing. Furthermore,\ua0we assumed they could be sensitive to competitive pressures provided by the institutional context in which they were embedded. Results showed that the bias and quality of publications greatly depend on reviewer motivations but also that context pressures can have a negative effect. However, while excessive competition can be detrimental to minimising publication bias, a certain level of competition is instrumental to ensure the high quality of publication especially when scientists accept reviewing for reciprocity motives

Attitudes of referees in a multidisciplinary journal: An empirical analysis

This paper looks at 10 years of reviews in a multidisciplinary journal, The Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (JASSS), which is the flagship journal of social simulation. We measured referee behavior and referees' agreement. We found that the disciplinary background and the academic status of the referee have an influence on the report time, the type of recommendation and the acceptance of the reviewing task. Referees from the humanities tend to be more generous in their recommendations than other referees, especially economists and environmental scientists. Second, we found that senior researchers are harsher in their judgments than junior researchers, and the latter accept requests to review more often and are faster in reporting. Finally, we found that articles that had been refereed and recommended for publication by a multidisciplinary set of referees were subsequently more likely to receive citations than those that had been reviewed by referees from the same discipline. Our results show that common standards of evaluation can be established even in multidisciplinary communities

Evaluation of total phenolics, anthocyanins and antioxidant capacity in purple tomatillo (Physalis ixocarpa) genotypes

Purple tomatillo genotypes were evaluated for their total anthocyanin, phenolic and antioxidant capacity. The result showed that ICTS-UDG-9-224 and ICTS-UDG-9-32 had the highest amount of total phenolic compounds 10.08 and 9.6 mg GAE/g fresh weight in genotypes, respectively, followed by ICTS-UDG-1-1 and ICTS-UDG-2-2 (5.5 and 5.3 mg GAE/g fresh weight), respectively. The highest content of anthocyanins was found in the genotypes ICTS-UDG-9-32 (6.94 mg of pelargonidin 3-glucoside equivalents/g of fresh weight). In contrast, the genotypes ICTS-UDG-9-224 showed lowest values of antocyanins content. On the other hand, for total antioxidant capacity, the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) methods showed that genotypes, ICTS-UDG-2-2 and ICTS-UDG-1-1 had the highest antioxidant capacity (approximately 80%) followed by genotypes ICTS-UDG-9-32 (55%) and ICTS-UDG-9-224 (28%), respectively. These results provide useful and important information for researchers in order to increase the antioxidant capacity and functional value of purple tomatillo for the food and nutraceutical industries.Key word: Antocyanins, purple tomatillos, bioactive compounds, antioxidant capacity

3d printing and testing of rose thorns or limpet teeth inspired anchor device for tendon tissue repair

Purposes: Advancements in medical technology have enabled medical specialists to resolve significant problems concerning tendon injuries. However, despite the latest improvements, surgical tendon repair remains challenging. This study aimed to explore the capabilities of the current state-of-the-art technologies for implantable devices. Methods: After performing extensive patent landscaping and literature review, an anchored tissue fixation device was deemed the most suitable candidate. This design was firstly investigated numerically, realizing a Finite Element Model of the device anchored to two swine tendons stumps, to simulate its application on a severed tendon. Two different hook designs, both bio-inspired, were tested while retaining the same device geometry and anchoring strategy. Then, the applicability of a 3D-printed prototype was tested on swine tendons. Finally, the device-tendon stumps ensemble was subjected to uniaxial tensile tests. Results: The results show that the investigated device enables a better load distribution during the immobilized limb period in comparison to standard suture-based approaches, yet it still presents several design flaws. Conclusions: The current implantable solutions do not ensure an optimal result in terms of strength recovery. This and other weak points of the currently available proposals will serve as a starting point for future works on bio-inspired implantable devices for tendon repair

The “invisible hand” of peer review : the implications of author-referee networks on peer review in a scholarly journal

Peer review is not only a quality screening mechanism for scholarly journals. It also connects authors and referees either directly or indirectly. This means that their positions in the network structure of the community could influence the process, while peer review could in turn influence subsequent networking and collaboration. This paper aims to map these complex network implications by looking at 2232 author/referee couples in an interdisciplinary journal that uses double blind peer review. By reconstructing temporal co-authorship networks, we found that referees tended to recommend more positively submissions by authors who were within three steps in their collaboration network. We also found that co-authorship network positions changed after peer review, with the distances between network neighbours decreasing more rapidly than could have been expected had the changes been random. This suggests that peer review could not only reflect but also create and accelerate scientific collaboration

The effect of publishing peer review reports on referee behavior in five scholarly journals

To increase transparency in science, some scholarly journals are publishing peer review reports. But it is unclear how this practice affects the peer review process. Here, we examine the effect of publishing peer review reports on referee behavior in five scholarly journals involved in a pilot study at Elsevier. By considering 9,220 submissions and 18,525 reviews from 2010 to 2017, we measured changes both before and during the pilot and found that publishing reports did not significantly compromise referees\u2019 willingness to review, recommendations, or turn-around times. Younger and non-academic scholars were more willing to accept to review and provided more positive and objective recommendations. Male referees tended to write more constructive reports during the pilot. Only 8.1% of referees agreed to reveal their identity in the published report. These findings suggest that open peer review does not compromise the process, at least when referees are able to protect their anonymity

Niche-breadth of freshwater macrophytes occurring in tropical southern African rivers predicts species global latitudinal range

The study tested the hypothesis that measurement, using multivariate Principal Components Analy-sis (PCA), of the niche-breadth of river macrophyte species in southern tropical Africa, may predicttheir larger-scale biogeographical range. Two measures of niche-breadth were calculated for 44 riverinemacrophyte species, from 20 families commonly occurring in Zambia, using an approach based on PCAordination with 16 bio-physico-chemical input variables. These included altitude, stream order, streamflow, pH, conductivity and soluble reactive phosphate concentration (SRP). In the absence of additionalchemical water quality data for Zambian rivers, invertebrate-based measures of general water qualitywere also used. These were benthic macroinvertebrate Average Score per Taxon (ASPT), and individualabundance of nine macroinvertebrate families with differing water quality tolerance, indicated by theirSensitivity Weightings within the Zambian Invertebrate Scoring System (ZISS). Macrophyte large-scalelatitudinal range was derived from world geopositional records held by online databases, and additionalrecords held by the authors. The two niche-breadth metrics divided the species into narrow-niche andintermediate/broad-niche categories, showing significant variation (from one or both of correlation andANOVA test outcomes) in altitude, stream flow, conductivity, SRP, pH and ASPT, but not stream order.Macrophyte alpha-diversity (as a measure of number of individual niches co-existing per habitat) showedno significant relationship with individual species niche-breadth. Narrow-niche species included a higherproportion of Afrotropical endemics than did species with broader niche size. There were significant pre-dictive relationships between macrophyte niche-breadth and latitudinal range of the target species atglobal and Afrotropical scales, but not for the Neotropics.Fil: Kennedy, Michael. University Of Aberdeen; Reino UnidoFil: Lang, Pauline. University of Glasgow; Reino UnidoFil: Tapia Grimaldo, Julissa. University of Glasgow; Reino UnidoFil: Varandas Martins, Sara. University of Glasgow; Reino UnidoFil: Bruce, Alannah. University of Glasgow; Reino UnidoFil: Moore, Isabel. University of Glasgow; Reino UnidoFil: Taubert, Rebeca. University of Glasgow; Reino UnidoFil: Macleod-Nolan, Chantal. University of Glasgow; Reino UnidoFil: McWaters, Stephanie. University of Glasgow; Reino UnidoFil: Briggs, John. University of Glasgow; Reino UnidoFil: Lowe, Steve. University of Glasgow; Reino UnidoFil: Saili, Kochelani. University Of Zambia;Fil: SICHINGABULA, Henry. University Of Zambia;Fil: Dallas, Helen. Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Sudafrica; SudáfricaFil: Morrison, Sean. University of Glasgow; Reino UnidoFil: Franceschini, Maria Celeste. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Centro de Ecología Aplicada del Litoral. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Centro de Ecología Aplicada del Litoral; ArgentinaFil: Willems, Frank. The Kasanka Trust; ZambiaFil: Bottino, Flavia. Universidad Federal de San Carlos; BrasilFil: MURPHY Kevin. University of Glasgow; Reino Unid