Cloudy, increasingly FAIR; Revisiting the FAIR Data guiding principles for the European Open Science Cloud

The FAIR Data Principles propose that all scholarly output should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. As a set of guiding principles, expressing only the kinds of behaviours that researchers should expect from contemporary data resources, how the FAIR principles should manifest in reality was largely open to interpretation. As support for the Principles has spread, so has the breadth of these interpretations. In observing this creeping spread of interpretation, several of the original authors felt it was now appropriate to revisit the Principles, to clarify both what FAIRness is, and is not

Trends in Population-Based Studies of Human Genetics in Infectious Diseases

Pathogen genetics is already a mainstay of public health investigation and control efforts; now advances in technology make it possible to investigate the role of human genetic variation in the epidemiology of infectious diseases. To describe trends in this field, we analyzed articles that were published from 2001 through 2010 and indexed by the HuGE Navigator, a curated online database of PubMed abstracts in human genome epidemiology. We extracted the principal findings from all meta-analyses and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) with an infectious disease-related outcome. Finally, we compared the representation of diseases in HuGE Navigator with their contributions to morbidity worldwide. We identified 3,730 articles on infectious diseases, including 27 meta-analyses and 23 GWAS. The number published each year increased from 148 in 2001 to 543 in 2010 but remained a small fraction (about 7%) of all studies in human genome epidemiology. Most articles were by authors from developed countries, but the percentage by authors from resource-limited countries increased from 9% to 25% during the period studied. The most commonly studied diseases were HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, hepatitis B infection, hepatitis C infection, sepsis, and malaria. As genomic research methods become more affordable and accessible, population-based research on infectious diseases will be able to examine the role of variation in human as well as pathogen genomes. This approach offers new opportunities for understanding infectious disease susceptibility, severity, treatment, control, and prevention

Removal of PCR Error Products and Unincorporated Primers by Metal-Chelate Affinity Chromatography

Immobilized Metal Affinity Chromatography (IMAC) has been used for decades to purify proteins on the basis of amino acid content, especially surface-exposed histidines and “histidine tags” genetically added to recombinant proteins. We and others have extended the use of IMAC to purification of nucleic acids via interactions with the nucleotide bases, especially purines, of single-stranded RNA and DNA. We also have demonstrated the purification of plasmid DNA from contaminating genomic DNA by IMAC capture of selectively-denatured genomic DNA. Here we describe an efficient method of purifying PCR products by specifically removing error products, excess primers, and unincorporated dNTPs from PCR product mixtures using flow-through metal-chelate affinity adsorption. By flowing a PCR product mixture through a Cu2+-iminodiacetic acid (IDA) agarose spin column, 94–99% of the dNTPs and nearly all the primers can be removed. Many of the error products commonly formed by Taq polymerase also are removed. Sequencing of the IMAC-processed PCR product gave base-calling accuracy comparable to that obtained with a commercial PCR product purification method. The results show that IMAC matrices (specifically Cu2+-IDA agarose) can be used for the purification of PCR products. Due to the generality of the base-specific mechanism of adsorption, IMAC matrices may also be used in the purification of oligonucleotides, cDNA, mRNA and micro RNAs

An analysis of the feasibility of short read sequencing

Several methods for ultra high-throughput DNA sequencing are currently under investigation. Many of these methods yield very short blocks of sequence information (reads). Here we report on an analysis showing the level of genome sequencing possible as a function of read length. It is shown that re-sequencing and de novo sequencing of the majority of a bacterial genome is possible with read lengths of 20-30 nt, and that reads of 50 nt can provide reconstructed contigs (a contiguous fragment of sequence data) of 1000 nt and greater that cover 80% of human chromosome 1

A multi-disciplinary perspective on emergent and future innovations in peer review [version 1; peer review: 2 approved with reservations]

Peer review of research articles is a core part of our scholarly communication system. In spite of its importance, the status and purpose of peer review is often contested. What is its role in our modern digital research and communications infrastructure? Does it perform to the high standards with which it is generally regarded? Studies of peer review have shown that it is prone to bias and abuse in numerous dimensions, frequently unreliable, and can fail to detect even fraudulent research. With the advent of Web technologies, we are now witnessing a phase of innovation and experimentation in our approaches to peer review. These developments prompted us to examine emerging models of peer review from a range of disciplines and venues, and to ask how they might address some of the issues with our current systems of peer review. We examine the functionality of a range of social Web platforms, and compare these with the traits underlying a viable peer review system: quality control, quantified performance metrics as engagement incentives, and certification and reputation. Ideally, any new systems will demonstrate that they out-perform current models while avoiding as many of the biases of existing systems as possible. We conclude that there is considerable scope for new peer review initiatives to be developed, each with their own potential issues and advantages. We also propose a novel hybrid platform model that, at least partially, resolves many of the technical and social issues associated with peer review, and can potentially disrupt the entire scholarly communication system. Success for any such development relies on reaching a critical threshold of research community engagement with both the process and the platform, and therefore cannot be achieved without a significant change of incentives in research environments

The state of altmetrics: a tenth anniversary celebration

Altmetric’s mission is to help others understand the influence of research online.We collate what people are saying about published research in sources such as the mainstream media, policy documents, social networks, blogs, and other scholarly and non-scholarly forums to provide a more robust picture of the influence and reach of scholarly work. Altmetric works with some of the biggest publishers, funders, businesses and institutions around the world to deliver this data in an accessible and reliable format.ContentsAltmetrics, Ten Years Later, Euan Adie (Altmetric (founder) & Overton)Reflections on Altmetrics, Gemma Derrick (University of Lancaster), Fereshteh Didegah (Karolinska Institutet & Simon Fraser University), Paul Groth (University of Amsterdam), Cameron Neylon (Curtin University), Jason Priem (Our Research), Shenmeng Xu (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Zohreh Zahedi (Leiden University)Worldwide Awareness and Use of Altmetrics, Yin-Leng Theng (Nanyang Technological University)Leveraging Machine Learning on Altmetrics Big Data, Saeed-Ul Hassan (Information Technology University), Naif R. Aljohani (King Abdulaziz University), Timothy D. Bowman (Wayne State University)Altmetrics as Social-Spatial Sensors, Vanash M. Patel (West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust), Robin Haunschild (Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research), Lutz Bornmann (Administrative Headquarters of the Max Planck Society)Altmetric’s Fable of the Hare and the Tortoise, Mike Taylor (Digital Science)The Future of Altmetrics: A Community Vision, Liesa Ross (Altmetric), Stacy Konkiel (Altmetric)https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/scholcom/170 Merit, Expertise and Measuremen