Open Science and Open Access Scientific Publishing: an essential combination. An analysis of the first 4 years of JBP activity

In July 2017, the Journal of Biomedical Practitioner (JBP) starts publications with its first number. Since its debut JBP would offer itself as a meeting place to health professionals, free to all and Open Access, without prejudices for experience exchanging between people that work in Biomedical Sciences with various purposes from welfare, diagnostic-therapeutic, rehabilitation and prevention, to the fields of basic and clinical research. JBP it’s a six-monthly publication, with double-blind peer review, written in Italian and English language. This editorial aims to analyze in deep the journal path in these 4 years, reporting the poster contents shown at 2° Congresso Nazionale della Federazione Nazionale Ordini dei Tecnici Sanitari Radiologia Medica e delle Professioni Sanitarie Tecniche, della Riabilitazione e della Prevenzione (FNO TSRM e PSTRP) that took place in Rimini on 19-21 november 2021. The improvement of quality standards offered will be highlighted, noting the fundamental role of the contribution of the auditors. The metadata analysis on the OJS/PKP platform, which is used by the journal and in turn it’s hosted by Sistema di Riviste Open Access (SIRIO@Unito) of the University of Turin, shows much interesting information about the article submitted: we received 90 article proposals and the 57% was published, of which the 16% was written in the two languages. The mean time needed was 62 days for the revision process and 110 days to get the article published. In each year were published a mean of 13 papers and 60% of them were written by authors from different professional areas. The fast access to the contents and the indexing of JPB on the main directories of Open Access Journals are the best reasons to choose this journal for publishing in the Biomedical Science areas

Open Science ed editoria scientifica Open Access: un binomio ormai inderogabile. Analisi dei primi 4 anni di attività di JBP

Nel luglio 2017 nasce il Journal of Biomedical Practitioner (JBP) con la pubblicazione del primo fascicolo.  Fin dal suo esordio il JBP vuole offrire ai professionisti della salute un “luogo di incontro” Open Access libero e senza pregiudizi per lo scambio di esperienze tra coloro che si occupano di Scienze Biomediche con finalità assistenziali, diagnostico-terapeutiche, riabilitative e di prevenzione, negli ambiti della ricerca di base e clinico. Si tratta di una rivista con pubblicazione semestrale, con revisione tra pari in doppio cieco, in lingua italiana ed inglese. Questo editoriale approfondisce il percorso della rivista JBP riportando i contenuti del poster presentato al 2° Congresso Nazionale della Federazione Nazionale Ordini dei Tecnici Sanitari Radiologia Medica e delle Professioni Sanitarie Tecniche, della Riabilitazione e della Prevenzione (FNO TSRM e PSTRP) svoltosi a Rimini dal 19-21 novembre 2021.  Si evidenzia il miglioramento degli standard qualitativi offerti, rilevando il ruolo fondamentale del contributo dei revisori. L’analisi dei metadati ed il work flow presenti sulla piattaforma OJS/PKP utilizzata dalla rivista e ospitata dal Sistema di Riviste Open Access (SIRIO@Unito) dell’Università di Torino, ha consentito di estrarre dati relativi alle proposte editoriali inviati a JBP: delle 90 proposte pervenute è stato pubblicato il 57%, di cui il 16% in doppia lingua (italiano e inglese). Il tempo medio necessario è risultato essere di 62 giorni per la revisione e 110 giorni per la pubblicazione. Sono stati pubblicati in media 13 articoli all’anno, e il 60% di questi lavori accreditava autori appartenenti a professioni diverse.  L’accesso immediato e l’indicizzazione di JBP sulle principali banche dati Open Access lo candida come mezzo preferenziale per la pubblicazione di prodotti della Ricerca nell’ambito delle Scienze Biomediche

An Educational and Physical Program to Reduce Headache, Neck/Shoulder Pain in a Working Community: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Noninvasive physical management is often prescribed for headache and neck pain. Systematic reviews, however, indicate that the evidence of its efficacy is limited. Our aim was to evaluate the effectiveness of a workplace educational and physical program in reducing headache and neck/shoulder pain. Methodology/Principal Findings: Cluster-randomized controlled trial. All municipal workers of the City of Turin, Italy, were invited to participate. Those who agreed were randomly assigned, according to their departments, to the intervention group (IG) or to the control group and were given diaries for the daily recording of pain episodes for 1 month (baseline). Subsequently, only the IG (119 departments, 923 workers) began the physical and educational program, whereas the control group (117 departments, 990 workers) did not receive any intervention. All participants were again given diaries for the daily recording of pain episodes after 6 months of intervention. The primary outcome was the change in the frequency of headache (expressed as the proportion of subjects with a 6550% reduction of frequency; responder rate); among the secondary outcomes there were the absolute reduction of the number of days per month with headache and neck/shoulder pain. Differences between the two groups were evaluated using mixed-effect regression models. The IG showed a higher responder rate [risk ratio, 95% confidence interval (CI)] for headache (1.58; 1.28 to 1.92) and for neck/shoulder pain (1.53; 1.27 to 1.82), and a larger reduction of the days per month (95% CI) with headache (-1.72; -2.40 to -1.04) and with neck/shoulder pain (-2.51; -3.56 to -1.47). Conclusions: The program effectively reduced headache and neck/shoulder pain in a large working community and appears to be easily transferable to primary-care settings. Further trials are needed to investigate the program effectiveness in a clinical setting, for highly selected patients suffering from specific headache types. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00551980. \ua9 2012 Mongini et al

Platelet size for distinguishing between inherited thrombocytopenias and immune thrombocytopenia: a multicentric, real life study.

The most frequent forms of inherited thrombocytopenia (IT) are characterized by platelet size abnormalities and it has been suggested that this parameter is useful for their differentiation from immune thrombocytopenia (ITP). Recently, a monocentric study identified cut-off values for mean platelet volume (MPV) and mean platelet diameter (MPD) with good diagnostic accuracy in this respect. To validate these cut-off values in a different and larger case series of patients, we enrolled 130 subjects with ITP and 113 with IT in six different centres. The platelet count and MPV was each measured by the instrument routinely used in each institution. In some centres, platelet count was also measured by optical microscopy. MPD was evaluated centrally by image analysis of peripheral blood films. The previously identified cut-off value for MPV had 91% specificity in distinguishing ITP from inherited macrothrombocytopenias (mono and biallelic Bernard-Soulier, MYH9-related disease), while its sensitivity was greatly variable depending on the instrument used. With an appropriate instrument, specificity was 83%. The diagnostic accuracy of MPD was lower than that obtained with MPV. We concluded that MPV is a useful parameter for differentiating ITP from IT provided that it is measured by appropriate cell counters