Engaging in quality technical peer review as an international professional responsibility: those who publish confidently must also review competently

La calidad del proceso de evaluación por pares académicos es fundamental en los métodos actuales de publicación científica y técnica, así como en la evaluación de propuestas de investigación. La incompetencia y falta de imparcialidad en la evaluación continúan siendo los problemas más citados sobre el proceso de evaluación por pares académicos. Debido a esto, crear y mantener un grupo de evaluadores comprometidos, responsables y calificados es fundamental para la publicación y diseminación científica. Un principio importante en la mecánica del sistema de evaluación por pares consiste en que aquellos que utilizan el sistema de publicación deberían luego revisar una carga equivalente a su rol como integrantes del mismo. Esto también implicaría que quienes escriben y envían artículos técnicos sean competentes para evaluar y criticar con justicia el trabajo de otros en sus áreas de estudio. Debido al rápido incremento en el número de artículos sometidos por parte de fuentes no tradicionales, incluyendo muchos países en vía de desarrollo, es necesario expandir el grupo de pares académicos al incluir miembros de estas comunidades de modo que sea posible dar respuesta a esta carga adicional impuesta a un sistema ya saturado; asimismo, comprometer nuevas comunidades en el tradicional proceso de evaluación y validación de los trabajos científicos y técnicos. Una evaluación efectiva por pares debe velar por varios elementos que incluyen la habilidad técnica del revisor, la conducta profesional, la imparcialidad, la ética y la responsabilidad por este proceso y por el sistema competitivo en el que éste se desarrolla a nivel internacional. Los pares evaluadores necesitan entrenamiento, supervisión, control, expectativas y guía continua. La validación de la efectividad general del proceso de revisión por pares requiere controles de seguimiento de la literatura publicada para confirmar su precisión y contenido a través de consenso y reproducción experimental. Como, en la actualidad, gran parte de los países en vías de desarrollo contribuyen al sistema de evaluación con un número significativo de artículos, estos países deben buscar activamente entrenar a sus contribuyentes, para que sean pares evaluadores efectivos y reconocidos por revistas internacionales, editores e instituciones financiadoras. Ésta no es una tarea pasiva, ya que requiere definir expectativas, políticas de reclutamiento, entrenamiento y demás elementos asociados, con miras a realizar los ajustes respectivos tan pronto como sus contribuciones sobrecarguen los sistemas de publicación actuales. La responsabilidad colectiva como investigadores, contribuyentes, evaluadores, lectores, y aseguradores de la integridad y protección de este esencial proceso de control de calidad tradicionalmente ha dependido de la integridad y consciencia profesional. La extensión de este esfuerzo por reclutar nuevos grupos de evaluadores competentes, entrenados y calificados, es esencial en la era actual de publicación científica.Quality peer-review remains central to current international scientific and technical publishing and proposal assessment methods. As incompetent review and perceived bias remain the most cited problems with peer review processes commonly employed in scientific review of manuscript and proposals, the creation and maintenance of quality pools of engaged, responsive and qualified peer reviewers is essential to scientific publishing and dissemination. An important operational principle for the peer reviewing system is that all who utilize this publishing system should then also review a commensurate load on behalf of the system. This would also imply that those who compose and submit technical manuscripts are competent to assess and levy fair criticism of other’s work in their field. Given the large and rapid expansion in numbers of submitted manuscripts from non-traditional sources, including many developing countries, expansion of the peer-reviewing pool to these sources is necessary both to accommodate their respective, newly imposed reviewing burdens on the already over-burdened system, and to engage new communities in the traditional process of vetting and validating scientific and technical works. Effective peer review must enforce the many elements of reviewer technical proficiency, professional conduct, bias and ethics considerations, and responsibility in this process and the competitive international system in which it sits. Reviewers require training, oversight, control, expectations, and continual guidance. Validation of peerreview’s overall efficacy requires follow-on policing of published literature to assert its accuracy and content through consensus and experimental reproduction. As former developing countries now contribute increasing numbers of new manuscripts to the technical peer-review system, they should also actively seek to officially train such contributors to also be visible, effective peer-reviewers for international journals, editors and funding agencies. This is not a passive endeavor, requiring expectations, recruitment and training, and the associated resources to make accommodations as rapidly as their contributions are encumbered within the current publishing systems. Collective responsibilities as researchers, contributors, reviewers, readers and enforcers of the integrity and safekeeping of this essential quality control process traditionally rely on individual professional integrity and conscientious effort. Extension of this effort to continually recruit new pools of competent, trained and qualified reviewers in the current publishing era is essential

El participar como par evaluador de calidad es una responsabilidad profesional internacional; aquellos que publican con confianza deben también evaluar con competencia

La calidad del proceso de evaluación por pares académicos es fundamental en los métodos actuales de publicación científica y técnica, así como en la evaluación de propuestas de investigación. La incompetencia y falta de imparcialidad en la evaluación continúan siendo los problemas más citados sobre el proceso de evaluación por pares académicos. Debido a esto, crear y mantener un grupo de evaluadores comprometidos, responsables y calificados es fundamental para la publicación y diseminación científica. Un principio importante en la mecánica del sistema de evaluación por pares consiste en que aquellos que utilizan el sistema de publicación deberían luego revisar una carga equivalente a su rol como integrantes del mismo. Esto también implicaría que quienes escriben y envían artículos técnicos sean competentes para evaluar y criticar con justicia el trabajo de otros en sus áreas de estudio. Debido al rápido incremento en el número de artículos sometidos por parte de fuentes no tradicionales, incluyendo muchos países en vía de desarrollo, es necesario expandir el grupo de pares académicos al incluir miembros de estas comunidades de modo que sea posible dar respuesta a esta carga adicional impuesta a un sistema ya saturado; asimismo, comprometer a estas nuevas comunidades en el tradicional proceso de evaluación y validación de los trabajos científicos y técnicos.Quality peer-review remains central to current international scientifi c and technical publishing and proposal assessment methods. As incompetent review and perceived bias remain the most cited problems with peer review processes commonly employed in scientifi c review of manuscript and proposals, creating and maintaining a quality pool of engaged, responsive and qualifi ed peer reviewers is essential to scientifi c publishing and dissemination. An important operational principle for the peer reviewing system is that all who utilize this publishing system should then also review a commensurate load on behalf of the system. This would also imply that those who compose and submit technical manuscripts are competent to assess and levy fair criticism of other’s work in their fi eld. Given the large and rapid expansion in numbers of submitted manuscripts from nontraditional sources, including many developing countries, expansion of the peer-reviewing pool to these sources is necessary both to accommodate their respective, newly imposed reviewing burdens on the already over-burdened system, and to engage new communities in the traditional process of vetting and validating scientifi c and technical works

In vitro Models for Seizure-Liability Testing Using Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

The brain is the most complex organ in the body, controlling our highest functions, as well as regulating myriad processes which incorporate the entire physiological system. The effects of prospective therapeutic entities on the brain and central nervous system (CNS) may potentially cause significant injury, hence, CNS toxicity testing forms part of the “core battery” of safety pharmacology studies. Drug-induced seizure is a major reason for compound attrition during drug development. Currently, the rat ex vivo hippocampal slice assay is the standard option for seizure-liability studies, followed by primary rodent cultures. These models can respond to diverse agents and predict seizure outcome, yet controversy over the relevance, efficacy, and cost of these animal-based methods has led to interest in the development of human-derived models. Existing platforms often utilize rodents, and so lack human receptors and other drug targets, which may produce misleading data, with difficulties in inter-species extrapolation. Current electrophysiological approaches are typically used in a low-throughput capacity and network function may be overlooked. Human-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are a promising avenue for neurotoxicity testing, increasingly utilized in drug screening and disease modeling. Furthermore, the combination of iPSC-derived models with functional techniques such as multi-electrode array (MEA) analysis can provide information on neuronal network function, with increased sensitivity to neurotoxic effects which disrupt different pathways. The use of an in vitro human iPSC-derived neural model for neurotoxicity studies, combined with high-throughput techniques such as MEA recordings, could be a suitable addition to existing pre-clinical seizure-liability testing strategies

Metacognitive monitoring and the hypercorrection effect in autism and the general population: Relation to autism(-like) traits and mindreading

Among neurotypical adults, errors made with high confidence (i.e., errors a person strongly believed they would not make) are corrected more reliably than errors made with low confidence. This “hypercorrection effect” is thought to result from enhanced attention to information that reflects a “metacognitive mismatch” between one’s beliefs and reality. In Experiment 1, we employed a standard measure of this effect. Participants answered general knowledge questions and provided confidence judgements about how likely each answer was to be correct, after which feedback was given. Finally, participants were retested on all questions answered incorrectly during the initial phase. Mindreading ability and ASD-like traits were measured. We found that a representative sample of (n = 83) neurotypical participants made accurate confidence judgements (reflecting good metacognition) and showed the hypercorrection effect. Mindreading ability was associated with ASD-like traits and metacognition. However, the hypercorrection effect was non-significantly associated with mindreading or ASD-like traits. In Experiment 2, 11 children with ASD and 11 matched comparison participants completed the hypercorrection task. Although ASD children showed significantly diminished metacognitive ability, they showed an undiminished hypercorrection effect. The evidence in favour of an undiminished hypercorrection effect (null result) was moderate, according to Bayesian analysis (Bayes factor = 0.21)

Recognition memory and source memory in autism spectrum disorder: A study of the intention superiority and enactments effects

It is well established that neurotypical individuals generally show better memory for actions they have performed than actions they have observed others perform or merely read about, a so-called “enactment effect”. Strikingly, research has also shown that neurotypical individuals demonstrate superior memory for actions they intend to perform in the future (but have not yet performed), an effect commonly known as the “intention superiority effect”. Although the enactment effect has been studied among people with ASD, the current study is the first to investigate the intention superiority effect in this disorder. This is surprising given the potential importance this issue has for general theory development, as well as for clinical practice. As such, this study aimed to assess the intention superiority and enactment effects in twenty-two children with ASD, and 20 IQ/age-matched neurotypical children. The results showed that children with ASD demonstrated not only undiminished enactment effects in recognition and source memory, but also (surprisingly for some theories) typical intention superiority effects. The implications of these results for theory, as well as clinical practice, are discussed

Association of nucleoid proteins with coding and non-coding segments of the Escherichia coli genome

The Escherichia coli chromosome is condensed into an ill-defined structure known as the nucleoid. Nucleoid-associated DNA-binding proteins are involved in maintaining this structure and in mediating chromosome compaction. We have exploited chromatin immunoprecipitation and high-density microarrays to study the binding of three such proteins, FIS, H-NS and IHF, across the E.coli genome in vivo. Our results show that the distribution of these proteins is biased to intergenic parts of the genome, and that the binding profiles overlap. Hence some targets are associated with combinations of bound FIS, H-NS and IHF. In addition, many regions associated with FIS and H-NS are also associated with RNA polymerase